


The Tale of the Twice-Cursed Pirate

by wordsbymeganmichael



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fantasy AU, Mermaids, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-09 21:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15276087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsbymeganmichael/pseuds/wordsbymeganmichael
Summary: Killian Jones has just watched his brother die in his arms, and he leads the rebellion against the current king - but though he is killed, he finds himself not actually dead. Now he is twice-cursed, and he needs something to live for; will he find it in the blonde damsel that he needs to rescue from the tower? And how will the secrets the world kept from her change both of their worlds for eternity?





	1. Part One: The End, and the Beginning

The  _Jewel of the Realm_  rocks peacefully on the waters of Misthaven, her sails blowing softly in the warm breeze of the sea. The sun beats down from the clear sky, and there are seagulls perched on the sails of the ship.

All is quiet in the world.

Well, that’s not technically true: all is quiet in Killian’s world, though he knows that somewhere on the ship, the crew is rejoicing, but he fails to hear it. All he can hear is a deafening nothingness, an eerie, ear-piercing  _silence_ as he holds his brother in his arms. He knows there should be sounds: the waves on the sides of the ship, footsteps from the crew on the deck above them, and the cheers--they made it out of Neverland, back to the Enchanted Forest, something none of them - especially not Killian himself - thought was going to happen after the chaos of their journey.

And maybe somewhere, in the very back of his mind, he does hear these things; but all he can focus on at the moment is Liam, the only pillar of his life that he’s always known to be solid. All he has now is… nothing. No family, no possessions beyond the small trunk of clothing sitting at the edge of his bunk. He remembers the words he said to him just moments ago: “I would follow you to the ends of the earth, brother” - and it is true.  _Was_ true. He would have followed his brother to the very ends of the earth.

But now, he has no one to follow, a fact that becomes exceptionally clear as he watches Liam’s body hit the water, the burial at sea that he always wanted - though not at so ripe an age. 

When one of the crew hands the sextant to him - “This belongs to you now, Captain.” - he doesn’t know what to say. He never wanted to be captain, never wanted to be in charge of his own ship - all he ever wanted was to sail the seas with his brother.

And then, feeling the patch attached to the sextant bag with his brother’s name - his name - he has an idea: he may no longer be able to sail the seas with his brother, but he can surely sail the seas  _for_ his brother.

Taking a moment to look out over the crew, he can feel his heart pounding in his chest, hears it even over the sound of the waves against the hull of the ship. It is time to rally his crew.

“We are sworn to serve the king and the realm. They sent us to retrieve an unthinkable poison, one that killed our dear captain. Never again shall we take such orders, serving the king, fighting his wars. That is the way of dishonor! And all you who disagree flee now, or walk the bloody plank!” No one moves a muscle, other than to look around at the others, everyone staying true to their new captain. “For those who stay will be free men, and I will be your captain. We’ll sail under the crimson flag, and we’ll give our enemies no quarter. We’ll take what we please! And we’ll live by our own rules, for that is the best form of all!

“Our kingdom is corrupt and immoral. They took my brother from me,  and now I’m going to take everything they’ve got, starting with this ship! Bring the paint from below! It’s time we rename this vessel!” He points to a crewman, who immediately goes to follow his orders. “We no longer sail as The Jewel of the Realm, we now sail as the Jolly Roger!” Now he is truly enraged, and removes the jacket of his officer’s uniform, tossing it overboard and into the waters of the corrupt realm. “When they come for us, I want them to know exactly what we are -- pirates! For at least among thieves, there is honor!”

His crew begins to cheer, then chant his name: “Captain Jones! Captain Jones!”

Adrenaline rushes through him, and he clenches his jaw. He may have lost a brother, but he has gained a crew, a crew that has decided to stay true to him, even after he turns against the corrupt King. He has found a home, aboard his new  _Jolly Roger_.

And, most importantly, he has found a purpose.

Later that day, he is sitting at the desk in Liam’s cabin - his cabin - trying to decide on their next move. Yes, he has led a whole crew of Naval officers to piracy, but what are they going to do?

“What would you do, brother?” he asks aloud to the sextant, feeling the cool metal under his fingers, searching the back of his mind for an answer. But he knows what his brother would do: exactly what he was planning on doing when they returned to the Enchanted Forest, confronting the king about the Nightshade, leading a revolt among the people in hopes of overtaking the corrupt government and replacing it with something better - someone who wouldn’t send the Royal Navy to retrieve a poison under the guise of a medicine. 

But Killian’s never been a leader, not until earlier when he made that rousing speech to his crew. His whole life, he had been taught to follow: follow orders, follow his brother, but never to lead, and now that he’s in a position where he has to lead, he begins to doubt himself.

There must be some reason that the crew rallied around him earlier - but was it him they were rallying around, or the memory of Liam? Something in him is sure that it was the latter.

A short rap at the door fails to pull him out if his trance, but when the first mate peeks his head through it and calls, “C-c-captain?”, Killian’s head snaps to him.

“Aye, Mister Smee?”

“The c-crew is starting to lose their p-p-patience, they want to know what our next m-move is going to be.”

“As do I, Mister Smee,” Killian mumbles, not quite loud enough for the man to hear him.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Killian shakes his head, pulled to a decision in the heat of the moment. “Tell the men to get ready to go ashore. We are going to rally the people, tell them of our journey to Neverland and the death of our dear captain. We are going to lead the revolt Liam always dreamed of.”

“Yes, sir!” Smee replies, closing the door behind him, and Killian hears the small man’s voice through the boards of the deck.

Killian wishes he could only share Smee’s confidence in him.

 

* * *

 

 

Standing above the townspeople, Killian both reprimands himself for tossing his jacket overboard, losing a sense of importance, and is sweating through the white dress shirt that he kept, thankful that he has one less layer to worry about. He tries not to worry about it too much as he tells their story to the people gathered around them, but feels a sense of confidence wash over him when he sees how intently they are listening to him.

“But Nightshade was not a medicine, as the king told my brother, the Captain! It was, in fact, a poison, and in trying to prove me wrong and stay true to his orders, Captain Jones pricked himself with the plant and immediately begin to die in my arms.” He hears the response from the crowd, but doesn’t let it get him as choked up as he himself wants to be. “What kind of king sends his royal navy to a land to retrieve a poison, though he tells them it is a medicine, needed to take care of his people? The king lied to us - and in doing so, took our dear captain - my beloved brother - from us! Are you going to follow a king that lies to his officers, uses the taxes you pay out of your very pockets to fund trips across realms to retrieve poisons?”

The crowd does exactly as he wishes: begins to revolt against the king right in front of his very eyes, though his crew may have helped string them along, yelling out among the crowd as he spoke.

“So what are we going to do about it?” Killian has begun his planned call to arms, and the people around him begin to shout - when, all of a sudden, there is a whoosh of wind next to him, a grey cloud that dissipates to reveal Rumplestiltskin, the magic-bearing Dark One who works for the King - though neither of them would ever admit it.

“Ah-ah-ah, Captain Jones.” His voice is thick, high, and somewhat unhuman, unlike anything Killian has ever heard before. Liam had spoken of this man before, though nothing would have prepared Killian for seeing him appear right in front of him. “Rallying against the King is treason, and is punishable by death. You don’t want that, do you, dearie?” His smile reveals a mouth full of small, sharp teeth, matching his lizard-like skin.

Killian does the first thing he thinks of: draws his sword. “Try me, dearie,” he taunts back, and a sword appears in Rumplestiltskin’s clawed hand. They spar for a few moments, blocking each other’s blows, but one of the Dark One’s blows lands, just above Killian’s wrist, and as his hand falls to the ground, he lets out a sharp scream.

Everyone is quiet, watching them stare at each other, until Rumple smiles at Killian, then disappears. Killian believes for a moment that he has given up, moved on from their battle - until he sees the tip of the sword poking through his chest.

The last thing he hears is the cackle of Rumpelstiltskin. Everything is red, including the front of his shirt - red, and then black.

 

## II.

Killian blinks his eyes open. Then blinks again. And again. But he still sees nothing.

_Do dead people blink?_

_I've never been dead before, so I wouldn't know._

_Gods, Killian. Pull yourself together._   

_Am I alive?_

“Is he alive?”

“Oh, funny joke, Ruby.”

 _I must be dead.  That was Liam’s voice._  He blinks again.  _And I still can't see._

“You know what I meant.”

“He’s not breathing.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” This voice is new, undeniably not his brother’s, and even though he knows he has heard it before, he cannot place it.

He blinks again, and slowly, his vision starts to come back - though he still doesn't believe what he sees.

Standing in a half-circle around his bed are a motley crew: Ruby and Tinkerbell, old friends of Killians; Robin, a man from his crew; and his brother.

“What the hell?” Killian feels his lips start working, the question in his mind finally formed.

“He speaks!”

Everyone leans in towards him, but Liam holds his arm out to hold them back, then kneels before his brother. “Killian,” he whispers. “Killian, how do you feel?”

He doesn’t think about it until Liam asks, but then he starts to notice all of the things that feel…  _different_.

“I feel…” he begins to answer, but he doesn’t quite know how he feels.

He feels  _cold_. Sluggish. But at the same time, he can feel everything: the movement of the flames of the candles across the cabin; the individual particles of rushing water beneath them, lopping up against the side of the ship; the creaking of the boards of the ship as his companions shift their weight under them; the breaths of the people around him, how their subtle movements change the air, and even their heartbeats.

And then he realizes something else - they don’t all  _have_ heartbeats. Tink does. Ruby does - a fast, pounding one. But Robin does not. And either does Liam.

And neither -  _neither does he._

Suddenly no longer sluggish, he snaps his head up, meeting the eyes of his brother. “What’s happened to me, Liam? Am I - am I dead?”

“I mean, not… not technically.”

“But you - you’re dead. You died in my arms.”

“Well, yes.”

“And you’re here?”

“Yes, brother.”

“You’re…”

Liam raises his eyebrows, a half-smile on his face, one that he thought he would never have the privilege of seeing again. “A ghost? Aye.”

Killian begins to nod his head, then takes a deep breath, realizing that is was the first breath he has taken. After another few moments of processing this information, he turns to Tinkerbell.

“You’re not dead, right?”

Tink smiles, then closes her eyes; wings grow on her back. “I’m very much alive, but I am a fairy.”

He nods again, then raises his eyes towards Ruby, who smiles at him. “Werewolf.”

“You’re a - okay, I guess that explains the pulse thing.”

Lastly, he turns to Robin. “You have no heartbeat.”

“Vampire.”

He nods again. “I also have no heartbeat, so am I…?”

“Also a vampire, yes.”

He licks his lips - realizing, like breathing, it was no longer necessary, but something that he probably won’t stop doing for a while anyway - and starts to nod again, looking around the room, though at nothing in particular.

“Why - how did this happen?”

“Well, what do you remember?” Robin asks.

“I remember, uh - what do I remember? Well, Liam died, we turned to piracy - “

“I'll talk to you about that later, brother,” Liam interjects.

“I did it for you,” Killian quickly retorts, then continues. “We went into town to build a rebellion against the king, and Rumplestiltskin appeared then -” He looks first around the room, then down at his hands - well, hand. And if that is true, then the rest of it must be, too. “Then he stabbed me. He killed me.”

“Yes. Rumple killed you, and I carried you back here to the comfort of the  _Roger_ to save your life.” Killian blinks a few times at Robin, still not sure that he's actually having this conversation.

“So then why are you all here?”

“Learning that you're no longer human isn't always the easiest thing for someone,” Ruby explains. “So we're here to make sure that you don't go insane processing all of this new information.”

“And also to welcome you to the afterlife!” Tink is perhaps more excited than she means to be, but Killian can't help but smile at her enthusiasm.

“We're not technically in the afterlife, Tinkerbell,” Robin comments. “Well, except Liam. He really died. And you're not even close to dead, you're just not human.”

“So it's more like a… welcome to the world of the supernatural party. Happy first day of the rest of your immortal life!”

“Immortal?” Killian repeats. He hadn't even thought about whether vampires could die; he had already died once today, so it wasn't really on the top of his mind.

“Aye, brother.  _Immortal_.”

An idea flashes through his mind, the first positive thing to come out of today: “A crew of undying men would be a good way to take down this tyrant we call king.”

Everyone in the room is silent for a moment, until Liam speaks up. “We tell you you're no longer human, that you can no longer die, and your first thought is to build an army of men and take down the king?” His face remains serious for a moment, then breaks into a wide, cheeky grin. “Attaboy, Killian! Someone sure taught you well.”

Killian smiles back at his brother, but then his face grows somber. “I’m not - I cannot kill anyone for this mission, though.”

“Of course not, Captain. Why do you think I spent years on your ship, and you never knew my secret? I’ve never killed anyone, that’s just a myth. Or, who knows, maybe there are vampires who turn innocent, living people. But I was never one of them, and you do not have to be, either.”

“But how do we build an army of undead without killing anyone?”

“The kingdom is in peril, brother. The king is sending out men to die every day. All we need to do is find the men that the king has failed and…” Liam’s voice trails off, unsure of the right word to use.

“Recruit them,” Robin finishes.

“Recruit them,” Killian repeats. “That can't be that difficult in a time of war and chaos.”

 

Difficult was one of the many things that the recruitment was  _not_. It was easy, it was fast, and it was certainly astonishing just how many men the king left to die: families in the streets, of hunger and disease; those who volunteered to fight for him - and fight him - strewn half- dead all over the battlefields around the kingdom; even his own guards, poisoned to take his secrets to the grave if they came to know too much. Within just seven days, Killian and Robin had rounded up an army of fifty men to join them - a small army, to say the least, something Liam reminded him every time he was given the chance.

But, on the other hand, they were also an army of men who cannot be killed, men who are literally willing and able to do anything to take down the king.

Killian stands above them on the deck of the  _Roger_ , looking out over the band he has created. After a moment, he gains their attention and begins: “As you all know, I have gathered you here for a reason. We have all been spared from death, given a second chance to get back at the one man who we all see as an enemy: the King.” Everyone around him on the deck cheers at this, though it doesn’t stop him from continuing his speech. “Through the actions of the king, whether they be personally or from his lack of empathy for his own followers, we have each found our own deaths, but we have chosen each of you to come back, to have the opportunity to get back at the man who has taken everything from you. I have given you the greatest tool to have in a battle: the inability to be killed by any weapon our enemy has at hand. His entire army is useless against us, and that will make taking him down, getting rid of the tyranny that runs this land, all the easier. So, we are going to do this the easiest way, what they never expected: we are going to storm the castle, take down the guards, spread the royal treasure through the streets, and kill the king.” He raises his hand in the air, squeezing it into a fist - except, he can no longer do that, he remembers a moment too late, staring up at it, at the hook that Tinkerbell helped give him in place of the lost limb.

“We will follow you to death, Captain Jones!” Robin yells, and, laughing, the whole crew cheers again.

Then, another cheer, one Killian finds extremely familiar, takes over the ship, through the mouths of every man and woman on the deck of the  _Roger_ : “Captain Jones! Captain Jones! Captain Jones!”

He must admit, it feels good, hearing them chant his name, knowing that they have nothing left, no option but to follow him where he leads. He looks out over the crowd, proud, until he meets the eyes of the one man in the world that could take this feeling from him: the bright blue eyes of his brother, piercing through him even at this distance. For a moment, he flashes back to the conversation he and Liam had just a few days before, after they had started creating their army.

_“What right do we have, Killian?”_

_“Right?”_

_“We are taking these men from the peace after death to fight our war.”_

_“It’s a war they’re all already a part of, Liam. A war that they have died fighting. We’re not killing them, we’re just giving them the opportunity for a second chance to fight against the monster that killed them.”_

_“The opportunity? You’re bringing them back from the dead. That’s not an opportunity, it’s a forced action.”_

_“You can’t turn someone who is already dead, brother. Robin and I have, uh, discussed our opportunity to each and every one of these people, given them the decision to join us, or we can take away their pain and assist them in dying in a way much faster than the king.”_

_“So they’ve all - they have all chosen to join you, not been forced or swayed?”_

_“Well, swayed, maybe a bit. When given the choice between death and eternal life, plus taking revenge on the man that caused your death, which would you choose?”_

Although it meant that they could not attack as soon as Killian had wanted, Liam and Robin agreed that their army needed at least a few days’ training. Many of the men that they had recruited were found in the streets, with little to no formal combat training. Even though they may not be able to die at the hands of their enemies, it wouldn’t hurt to teach them to fight for themselves.

But, within just seven days, they are ready. Killian has had some of the ex-guards draw up plans of the castle, the easiest ways to get in and out of the castle closest to the king; where the best treasures are kept. They wait for nightfall, and make their advance, Killian with two of the king’s men, August and Philip, leading the attack against the king; and Robin, partnered with Graham, leads the venture down to the vaults in the catacombs, where most of the king’s gold is kept.

But as they found their way to the king’s chambers, Killian found himself doing something that surprised him: while he followed in the wake of the men in front of him, cutting through the guards, Killian is unable to raise his sword to any of the men they come across. After two weeks of saving men from death, he cannot bring himself to bring death to men. With every guard they approach, he can feel the life in them, can feel their hearts speed up knowing they are about to die, and he is unable to be the man to take their lives from them. As they make their way through the long, echoing hallways of the palace, he slowly lowers his sword to the ground, letting those around him take charge.

But when he finds himself, finally, at the doors to the king’s chambers, a fire awakes in him, for Liam,  for his revenge, his freedom; and as the men - his men - take down the door, an energy surges through him, rattles him to the very core. 

He is waiting for them, must have heard their advancement down the hallway, but he is still amazed by the crew that bursts through his door: Killian, in his naval uniform, resurrected just for this task; men of his that he had killed, wearing his colors. He thought he was ready to fight for his life, but when he takes them in, really sees the impossible standing right there in front of him, he does the one thing that feels right: eyes wide, not taking them off of his ex-head guard, August Booth - a man he killed with his own hands - he drops his sword and falls to his knees.

“I - I knew this day would come, when all of my ghosts come back to kill me.” His voice is soft, trembling, as August picks his sword up off the ground in front of him. “But this is more - more real than I ever imagined that would look like.” The king fully expects August to be the one to kill him: stab him in the chest with his own sword, or even a few blows to the neck. Nothing he does not deserve, at least, given all he hurt he has caused.

But, to his surprise - though not much else could surprise him at this point - August is not the one that comes at him. Instead, August takes a step back and turns to the uniformed officer behind him, the naval captain with the searing blue eyes, blue eyes that seem familiar to the king, though the man himself he has never seen before. The room becomes silent, and the only thing the king hears is the sound of his own breath - scared, ragged. All eyes in the room are on the blue-eyed man, except the captain’s are on his hand, the sword he is holding in front of him.

Suddenly, he looks up, right at the king, and takes a few steps towards him. “My name is Killian Jones. My brother was Liam Jones, Captain of your vessel  _Jewel of the Realm_. Do you remember him?”

The king gulps, then nods, meeting the eyes of the man in front of him. “I do remember your brother, Mister Jones. You have his eyes, you know. And no one could ever forget that blazing blue.”

“Captain Jones,” Killian corrects, unmoving, and he feels his jaw clench in anger.

“So the rumors are true.  _Captain_ Jones. But you’re not a naval captain anymore, have not the honor and valor that your dear brother did under my flag.”

This ignites something within him, the way the king talks about Liam as if he has the right to do so.

“Just because my honor is not towards you, your majesty, does not mean I do not have any. But I can assure you that I have much more honor than you will ever have. Honor among thieves.”

“Bold words from a pirate captain, I must say. Am I really so dishonorable in your eyes that the best thing to do is steal a naval vessel and sail under your own flag?”

Killian presses the blade of the sword against the king’s neck, and can feel the way his pounding heart causes his blood to rush under the cool metal. “Do you not know? Was the task really so unimportant to you that you have forgotten how you deceived, used, and  _killed_ my honorable brother?”

For the first time, Killian can see the fear in the king’s eyes, can somehow sense it from the smell of him, and he sees the flash of revelation cross his face, now just inches away from his own. “The Nightshade.”

“Aye. My brother fought for your honor, argued with me to defend you, and through all of that, you killed him. You sent him to an unknown land to retrieve this nightshade under the guise of medicine, and he followed you so blindly that he poisoned himself to prove to me that you were honorable.”

“You have to prove yourself honorable to receive it, captain. That is how you get men to follow you. You must have done something to rally these man behind you, honorable or not?”

“Oh, what I did for these men is the most honorable thing you can do for someone: I saved them from death. Death caused at your hands, firsthand for some, or just because you failed to take care of your kingdom. Your men tried to kill me, and they almost succeeded, but I was saved at the last moment, taken from death to come back and avenge my brother. I did the same thing for these men, saved them from their deaths.” Killian smiles at the king, a smile full of deceit and confidence. “I would say that they would follow me to their deaths, but I’m afraid that is no longer possible.”

“Immortals,” the king whispers, and Killain’s smile grows. “That’s - it’s not possible.”

“I must say, your majesty, that I found it hard to believe at first, at well. But, alas, it is true. And I can assure you that, while immortality may have saved me from your hand, it will not save you from mine.” He takes a step back, returning his sword to its sheath, choosing instead to use the weapon he has because of the king’s actions, and he presses the sharp tip of his hook above the king’s heart. “This is for my brother,” Killian says, then thrusts his hook into his chest as hard as he can.

He cannot take his eyes off of the king. Killian has killed men, though almost always in defense of his life, or his brother’s; but he has saved so many more, taken them from death instead of walking them towards it. In the few occasions that he has needed to kill not out of self-defense, he has always felt his wrong right away, regretted his actions almost immediately.

This is not true with the king. He knows where the pang of regret hits his chest, knows how it has always felt before, but he simply does not feel it now. In fact, it is quite the opposite: he feels a weight lifted, knowing that he had done what he can for revenge of Liam.

August is the first one that speaks up, pulling Killian out of his own head. “Captain, we should go down to the catacombs, they will be waiting for us.”

Killian turns to August and nods, then back to the king. “Aye. We still have work to do here.”

But as they exit the king’s chamber and begin their way down the hallway and through the castle, the rest of their crew come around the corner, toting at least a dozen chests of treasure between them, as well as bags hitched over their shoulders. Robin and Graham lead the way towards him, and when Robin sees Killian in front of him, his hook covered in the blood of the king, a smile erupts over his face.

“I guess we’ve both succeeded today, eh, Jones?”

“That we have, Robin. But we have one more thing left to do.”

“Well, compared to what we’ve both been through these past few days, this should be a breeze.”

Finally, Killian smiles at him, then takes one of the bags of treasure from one of the men to the window, standing in the sill and looking out over his crew once again.

“We have no use for this treasure among ourselves, men!” In response, the men rally around him, taking their own bags and chests to the windows up and down the hallway. “Our corrupt king has been taken down, and now we have stolen the same riches he has taken from the people. And now we have taken them back!” Killian pushes open the window and dumps the bag of gold out of it and down into the courtyard below. The other men do the same, spilling thousands upon thousands of gold coins, jewels, trinkets, into the streets of the city.

 

## III.

Killian and his crew watched it all from afar, heard stories of it from the shop workers at the docks: chaos in the streets, peasants hearing of the death of the king and rallying together his men that did not immediately surrender to them. For a few days, there was anarchy with brief periods of peace - robberies, pillaging.

And then, one day, it all stopped.

One of the townsmen, a shepherd named David, rallied the people together under the name of peace. Not only that, but they then led the citizens in something many of them had only head of in stories of other lands: a vote. Someone to watch over the town, not as a total ruler, just as someone to make sure those who do wrong are rightfully punished, settle disputes, and do their best to keep the peace between people.

Some of the crowd refuses to take part in the vote; some of them vote for themselves. But, overwhelmingly, one woman hailed victorious, a woman who knew in her heart that her husband would win: Snow White, stablemaster for the town and wife of the shepherd David that called the meeting to begin with.

Snow and David refused to reside in the castle, instead staying in their own residence and continuing about their day jobs as much as possible, but opening up the rooms in the castle to any in the realm who need a place to stay. Together, they led meetings with the masses, solving problems and de-escalating disputes when needed, as well as allowing citizens to come before them with problems and concerns whenever necessary.

Killian gives them just enough time to get used to their everyday lives before he decides to drop by, armed with a plan and a few tricks up his sleeve. They agreed to meet at one o’clock, but he leaves them waiting, keeping them on their toes while simultaneously allowing himself to keep the high ground advantage.

Pushing through the doors to the throne room, he knows his plan has worked, for instead of seated on the thrones, David has begun pacing back and forth. “I know it’s not polite to keep people waiting, especially people as important as you and your wife,” he announces, the tails of his long leather jacket billowing behind him. The thick heels of his boots clunk against the solid stone floors as he approaches them, a cold sound that echoes off the cold walls. “But pirates are not known to be the most polite.”

David can feel his breath hitch in his throat, and snapping his head in his direction, he shoots daggers with his eyes in the direction of the strange man standing before him, dressed from head to toe in black pirate regalia - but the thing that draws most of his attention is the left hand, which has been replaced with a hook.

“Pirates?” Snow jumps up behind her husband, who holds his hand out to hold her back. While most of her body is hidden behind David’s, Killian notices the bulge of her stomach as she pushed herself up off the throne, a bulge that could only mean one thing: Snow White is pregnant.

“I heard there were pirates in the waters around here. Is it safe to assume that you are the same captain that led the attack against the king?”

Killian clicks his heels together, then flourishingly bows before the pair of them. “Aye, mate. Captain Jones, at your service. Or you may know me by my more colorful moniker, Captain Hook.”

“Are you sure of that?” David’s soft blue eyes are full of question, and Killian does not fail to see his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

“Actually, see, that would be why I have arranged this meeting today. I have something to discuss with you, as current leader of this realm.”

“I have nothing to discuss with pirates,” David spits, but Snow sets her hand on his shoulder, waits for him to turn to her, and takes a step in front of him.

“Wait, David. I, for one, am interested in what he has to say. I am the one that they elected, if you’ll remember.” Killian can tell from her tone that she is mostly joking, but can also sense just how deep this cuts her husband, though they walk down the steps towards him together.

Licking his lips, he begins. “Thank you, love. I’ve come with a proposition for you, as the leader of this realm. I want to sail the high seas under your commission, pillaging only from those who can afford it, and only to give it along to the people that need it the most, in this realm and others.”

“Why should we accept this offer from you, Captain Jones?”

Killian begins pacing in front of them, fingering the ring on his hand. “My brother blindly followed the commands of a corrupt king, and it killed him. But he taught me that the most important thing a man can have is honor. I have recently come into a situation that allows me and my crew to sail the seas without worrying about, um - well, without worrying about much at all, really.”

“Why would we agree to this?” David asks.

Killian smiles at the two of them, then takes the few steps up the stairs to take a seat in one of the thrones. “That is the question I have been waiting for. The way I see it from down here, the two of you owe me a favor. And a fairly sizable one, at that.”

“What makes you see it that way?”

“Well, because I am the reason you are here. If it weren’t for me, we would still be under the banner of that awful king that preceded you.” David and Snow share a glance, then they both turn back to the pirate.

“So, what do you need from us?” Snow asks after a moment.

A slow smile creeps back across Killian’s face.

“A reason. An honorable reason. And, more importantly, protection. Somewhere safe and warm where we can, say, put our feet up at the end of the day.”

David rushes back up the stairs towards Killian, taking the lapels of his lacket in his fists. “Why should we agree to your terms, pirate?” He pulls Killian’s face towards him. “What’s in it for us?”

“Treasure, mate. My men and I have cleaned out the treasury and the catacombs, so without the gold that I will bring back to you, this realm will have nothing-you will have nothing.”

A beat passes between them, and Snow is the first one to speak. “He - he does have a point, David. Neither of us have the resources to keep this realm running on our own, especially once the baby comes”

With his wife’s words, David slowly releases Killian’s jacket and takes a step away from him. He turns around to face Snow, and the spend a few moments just looking at each other - and then they both nod.

“Alright, Captain Jones,” Snow says, finally, coming up the stairs and standing next to her husband. “You have yourself a deal.”


	2. Part Two: Thirty Years Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in the posting! I saved it as a draft to post it while I was away, and it had disappeared when I went to do it! But heeeeeeeere you go... PART THREE of "The Tale of the Twice-Cursed Pirate," and the introduction of Emma Swan. Enjoy!

##  **I.**

“Hello, stranger.” The voice in his ear is soft, light, like a twinkling light on the horizon, and he sets down his tankard of ale, a sly smile spreading across his face. 

“Tinkerbell, my old friend.” 

Suddenly, he feels the cold edge of a blade against his throat, Tink’s breath warm in his ear. “We’re much more than that, Killian. Or have you forgotten our last few meetings?”

“Actually, love, it’s quite the opposite. Memories of our previous, uh, rendezvous, keep me up at night, especially those lonely, cold ones where all a man wants is some company, some lass to keep him warm.” He manages to keep his voice clear and steady, but he begins to feel a warmth in his stomach thinking on their history, one of the few feelings he learned had not disappeared with his mortality, thankfully. 

“Can I expect to see you tonight?” The force of the blade against his throat disappears, and the fairy sits down next to him at the table. 

Killian sets one hand on Tink’s leg and the other against her cheek. “Why wait until tonight?” Now his voice is low, a growl at the back of his throat. He waits for just a moment, then forcefully presses his lips against hers. He cannot stop himself: they had been at sea for almost ten months, which is a long time with no female companionship, even for an immortal. 

It takes her by surprise, but she does not back away from it. It is a kiss that has no love in it, but one full of passion, of lust. Quickly, the pair of them move from the table in the tavern to the room upstairs that Killian rented for the few days they are on land: he may have grown up on the sea, been chosen by it, but he will also spend eternity on it - so he will take any and all opportunity to stay on land when given the chance. 

There is little foreplay between Killian and Tinkerbell - in all the times they have been together, there rarely has been. Like a machine, they do nothing unnecessary to the task at hand, not even removing any clothing that does not lay in the way. They do not even converse afterwards, but simply redress themselves and return to the tavern, back to the very table they started at, with two tankards of ale and two bowls of stew. 

“Aye, love, so what news of the realm do you have for me?” Killian asks finally. 

Tink downs the whole tankard of ale, then turns to him. “Actually, Jones, I have just the right task for you. There’s a tale going a round - a rumor, maybe, but maybe not - about a girl, locked away in a tower in a small land known as Corona. A tower guarded by a monster no man can kill. No  _ living  _ man.”

Her words spread a smile across his face. “Well, lucky for her, I am not a living man.”

“That’s why it made me think of you, and your band of merry men. You know,  _ undying  _ merry men.”

“But why should I do this, Tink? What does this lass hold that is important enough for someone with my specific set of skills?”

“Well, I’ve heard she’s just your type. Tall, blonde, gorgeous, been locked in this tower since she was a young girl so you would be the only man she’s ever met, pretty much.”

“If she has been locked away for so many years, how do you know she is tall and gorgeous?”

Tink scoffs at him, and hands her tankard to one of the barmaids that walk past them. “I just tell you what I’ve heard, Killian. I never question them. Besides that, she’s a woman, by the gods. Someone may even be offering a steep reward will follow if you are the one that saves her. A reward that you would be able to keep instead of giving it to the king to fulfill your oath.”

“You should know better by now, love. I never did it for the treasure.”

“But you always do it for the ass - lass.” She chuckles at her play on words, and after a moment, he smiles as well. 

“Aye, that I do.”

  
  


When he conveys this story to Robin and the rest of the crew, they have the same initial reaction that he did, but in the end, it was his decision - his ship, his life. All they would have to do is wait for him to return to the harbor with the princess and they would be on their way. 

The land of Corona is not far from Misthaven, but the land itself is so small that only one person on the crew has heard of, the only one that is not herself immortal: the orphan girl named Alice. 

Killian remembers the night he found her, the last time they made port. He was returning to his ship after an escapade with Tinkerbell when he heard her screams, and he expected to find someone that needed his help, his saving. Instead, her screams were just part of her act, how she convinced her captors that she was helpless before she struck. He had just rounded the corner when she attacked them, single handedly taking down the four men who attacked her. 

Instead of saving her, he applauds her, stepping out from the shadows of the alley. He caught her off guard, but did not scare her: he is far enough away and not loud enough to be seen as an enemy, as someone who needs to be taken down. 

“I have been around for quite a while, lass, and that was still one of the most impressive things I have ever experienced.”

At first, she was unsure of him, a leather-clad man with a bright green vest that appeared seemingly out of nowhere, but he still approached her slowly, and he noticed just how young she really is, just a child, no more than twelve. 

“What’s your name, girl? Why are you out here alone so late?”

He took a few more slow steps towards her before she took a step in his direction. 

“I - I have nowhere else to go. I am the only protection I have out here. And my name is Alice.”

Killian felt for the girl, somehow saw himself in her bright eyes: alone, no family, growing up on the streets. He was drawn to her, and felt the sudden need to protect the girl in the very way he wished for protection when he was her age, in her situation. 

“Who - who are you?” she asked, after he takes a few silent seconds to really  take her in. 

“My name is Jones. Captain Jones. Have you ever been on a ship, Alice?”

While her answer was no, she took to the sea like a fish, and proved herself well-versed in the star charts. Killian viewed her as a daughter, as someone that he could protect, though he knew that she did not need it as much as he wanted her to. But she knew of Corona, even claimed she knew how to get there. And, to no one’s surprise, she was right. Within just a few hours of setting sail, they pulled into the harbor of the land of Corona. 

He can see the tower from the harbor, and he instantly knows it is the one he was sent here for. It sticks up, taller than even the tallest trees, a pale purple against the bright blue sky. 

But he also sees why no man has yet succeeded in rescuing this damsel from her tower, the reason everyone who has attempted to free her has failed. Even in all the years Killian and his crew have spent traveling the realms, near and far, he sees something in the sky above the tower that he has never seen before: a dragon. Sure, he has read about them, heard the tall tales from men that have claimed to have traveled further than he has, but he never knew for sure if they were real or not. 

Seeing one there, right in front of him, however, stops him in his tracks. He came into this adventure expecting some other facet of his powers to be the key to rescuing the princess: super strength, stamina, inability to be cut by any weapon known to man. But the fact that his immortality itself, that he can withstand so much more than the average man without dying - the one thing that, beyond what he has been able to test while at sea, he is really unsure of the boundaries of - is the only thing that can save him makes him second-guess himself and his decisions for the first time in a very long time, since the very moment he held his dying brother in his arms. 

Suddenly, Alice’s voice is in his ear. “ _ They’re real _ .”

He whips around towards her. “You - did you know there were dragons here, in this realm? Protecting the tower?”

Alice’s face grows pale - paler than usual, at least - with Killian’s raised voice. When she finally speaks, her voice is soft. “I’ve heard the stories, Captain. I hoped that they were real, but I  - I did not know if you would agree to come if I told you.”

“Aye, lass, I probably would not have come. But we’re already here, are we not? And I am a little more difficult to kill than the average knight that comes traipsing through to rescue this lass.”

Robin, Will, and August are approaching him as he says this last part, and all three of them hope that they heard him wrong. 

“Captain, you can’t - “ August stops, but the light behind Killian’s eyes when he turns to the men stop him. Once the Captain has made up his mind, there is no going back: Killian is going against the dragon. 

  
  


“Killian, you have got to be kidding me.” Leave it to Liam to - as always - appear at the worst possible time, as he stands on the edge between the woods and the large clearing that surrounds the tower. 

“By the gods, Liam! One of these days you are going to be the death of me.”

Liam crosses his arms and looks out over the field, up at the dragon resting at the top of the tower. “I think you may have beaten me to the punch on that one, boy. The way this looks, you’re just trying to get yourself killed now.”

“I figured that since I was a tad harder to kill than the average man, then this should be a feat that I should at least attempt. Granted, when we set sail, I really was not aware of the dragon.”

“Aye, the girl was wise not to tell you.”

“The fairy, or the orphan off the street?” Killian has learned of the omnipotence of his brother in his current state, how he rarely leaves the ship and learns of Killian’s adventures through the mouths of those who follow him, but chooses when to reveal himself - and tends to only do that when Killian is alone, though not always. 

“The fairy was not sure that the story itself was real, nonetheless the supposedly-mythical creature guarding it. But the other girl, the fighter that you brought on to the  _ Roger _ . She is smart.”

A beat passes between them, both facing out towards the beast in the field, until Killian turns towards his brother. “So, what are you here to tell me this time, Liam? That I should just go back to the ship, forget about the woman that needs my help?”

“No, no, of course, by all means, rescue the girl. But I also ask that, unlike everything else for the rest of your life, let me help you with this one.”

“How are you going to help me, Liam?”

“Well, the dragon can’t kill me, can it? Let me distract her, you scale the tower and rescue the lass, and then we can all get back to the sea and out of this mystical, godsforsaken place.”

“Excuse me…  _ her _ ?” 

“Of course the dragon is female. Something that large and gorgeous, yet mysteriously dangerous? Only a woman could hold that power. I would think someone was well-versed in women as you are would know that.”

“But how… no, _why_ do you know this?”

“Just look at her, Killian? Can you not sense it?”

“I’m just… Never mind, brother. But how are you going to distract the dragon?”

Killian recognizes the gleam in Liam’s eyes, the excitement and adrenaline before he enters a battle. “No need to worry about me, brother. Just go rescue the princess.”

“Aye, I guess I cannot worry about losing you to the dragon, since I cannot lose you again.” He turns to the monster, then back to his brother, but Liam has already gone, taken off across the field to take on the dragon. Killian sighs, shaking his head. Even after twenty years alive with his brother, and thirty years of him appearing whenever and wherever he damn well pleases, Liam still manages to surprise him every once in a while - and offering himself to fight this dragon, a foe he certainly cannot beat, but also a fight he cannot lose, is one of those surprises. 

With his speed and strength, it takes Killian only a minute or two to cross the field and scale the tower. To amuse himself, he notices not a door at the top of the tower, but a window, outside of which sits a sill large enough for him to sit upon - and that is exactly what he does, after rapping his knuckles on the shutters. 

It takes a few moments for her to respond, obviously thrown off by someone knocking on her window, but she opens it nonetheless and finds the pirate captain there. 

“H-hello?” At first she does not believe her eyes; after so many years, she has watched noble men, men who hoped themselves to be her savior, cross the field around her tower, but when she hears the roar of the dragon, her ultimate protector, she knows that they will not be the ones meant to take her. In the past few years, she has given up hope altogether, not even bothered to look upon those who have tried to save her once she hears the roar. 

But she has not heard her roar, and at first, she does not believe her ears. She opens the window anyway, not expecting to find anything, and is surprised again. 

For just a moment, they only stare at each other, each as surprised as the other. She is surprised by the sheer fact that he is there; but Killian is enthralled by the woman in ways he has never been before, thrown into silence for perhaps the first time in his life. She is stunning, perhaps even too gorgeous to be human - something at one point in his life Killian would have found impossible, though not anymore. Her bright blonde hair falls perfectly in waves to just beyond her shoulders, and the brightness in her green eyes reminds him of the days when it was always within his own, and within Liam’s. 

“Hello, love,” he gets out finally, smiling at her, and she briefly smiles back, though still obviously confused. “Are we going to wait around all day, or would you like me to finish the task at hand and take you from this place?”

Instead of answering him, she sticks her head out the window and looks up towards the sky, to where the large, scaled tail of the dragon waves over them. “How did you - she didn’t even - “, but she is too flabbergasted to even finalize any of her thoughts. 

“My brother has made it his dying wish to distract that beast, and he seems to be making good of it.”

“She is not a beast, she was put there to protect me.”

“So it is a girl,” Killian says softly, shaking his head, but the princess still responds.

“Of course she is. Just look at her.”

“But what was she put there to protect you from?”

She flashes him a wicked smile, leaning in towards him. “Dashing men who think they have come to save me, though that is an almost impossible feat to accomplish.”

“If you would stop stalling and let me get you out of here, then I would have accomplished it.”

Her smile fades, her features melting into a frown. “You do not understand, sir. I am not locked away in this tower to shield me from the world, I am here to be protected from it, from a world that I can never be a part of. This tower is enchanted to keep me safe, to heal me from what the world does to me, from what I am cursed to live through. The only way I could ever live outside of this place is to be on the open sea every day for the rest of my life, which is not a life any man should be forced in to just for me.”

Now it is Killian’s turn to smile at her. “Aye, but lass, you have not allowed me to introduce myself. The name is Jones.  _ Captain  _ Killian Jones, of the famed  _ Jolly Roger _ , the ship that provides a haven for undying men to sail the seas every day for the rest of their lives.” He says the final few words slowly, watching her face as she realizes what he is saying.

“ _ Captain _ Jones,” she repeats - and then is taken aback once more when the ghost of Liam drops down next to his brother, smiling and unscathed. 

“How goes it, brother?” Liam asks, but he continues before Killian can answer. “Have you ever tried to converse with a dragon? Of course you have not, just a few hours ago you were still convinced they do not exist. But I’ve spoken with this one, and guess what? She has always wanted to sail the seas.”

“You - you have  _ what? _ ” Killian is, once again, beyond words. “You have conversed with the dragon, and now you want us to take her with us? Where in the names of all the gods would we keep her?”

“You know, I thought the same thing, but then you know what she told me?” He pauses for Killian to respond, but the princess is the one who answers the question.

“She is enchanted. She can change her size whenever she wants.”

“Aye, exactly!” Liam exclaims, then turns to her. “You must be the famed lass. Captain Liam Jones, at your service, my lady.”

“I thought you were captain?” she asks, turning to Killian.

“Just a bit of a technicality, really. See Liam is not exactly what most people classify as living, and  _ as I have explained to him before _ , you cannot very well be captain of a vessel if you’re dead.”

“Dead? But you’re - I can see you, you are right here in front of me, and I can touch you - “ She goes to place her arm on Liam’s, but feels nothing other than air. After a moment to compose herself, she turns to Killian and nods slowly. “Okay, so then, he really is a…”

“Ghost, yes ma’am. The  _ Roger  _ is full of men like Liam, men that life has not been so kind to, so we only make port when we feel the need to, not because we get anything out of it, just to break up the unending days at sea. So for someone who needs an endless ocean to keep her alive, I would say it is safe to assume that my vessel is the best place for you.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Emma looks back up at Killian. “And I can bring Lily with, as well?”

“Lily?”

“The dragon,” she and Liam respond simultaneously. 

Killian nods at them. “Aye, yes, of course. Would she be so kind as to offer the two of us a ride back to the sea?”

Liam jumps up excitedly, forgetting that he is sitting on a window ledge hundreds of feet up in the air - but he floats nonetheless. “I will go discuss this all with her.” And he is gone.

“Well, love, there is only one more thing I need from you for this journey of ours to begin.”

“ _ Need  _ from me?” She is taken aback by the bluntness of his words, her mind immediately jolted to the ‘true love’s kiss’ she has read about in all the storybooks, but that is not what he means.

“Aye, if we are going to make this adventure of ours work, you should at least tell me your name, as I have already given you mine.”

“Oh,” she sighs, relieved. “My name is Emma. Emma Swan.”

  
  
  


##  **II.**

At first, he is surprised how well she is taking to the sea, given that she spent most of her life hundreds of feet in the air, barely able to even see the horizon over the trees. Even men who have spent their whole lives on ships tend to at least feel slightly seasick upon returning to the sea, but Emma has never seemed to feel even the slightest bit nauseated. She has been up with the sun every morning, looking brighter each day, even still, always traipsing across the deck, and even below decks, in her bare feet. Something about her, about her mannerisms and demeanor aboard the  _ Roger _ , seems as if she was made to live aboard the sea. 

He cannot fight the way he is drawn towards her, both in a protective sense and in the way sirens draw men to their deaths. He wants to do all he can to help her, to make her feel comfortable and safe in her new life at sea; but he also wants to hold her in his arms, love her in ways no one has loved her before - ways that  _ he  _ has never loved another. 

But to what end? He is doomed to spend eternity on the seas, and though she must stay on the sea to live, she is still a mortal. She would grow old beside him while he remained the same, taunting her as her body began to fail. Even if they spent one lifetime together, he would still know the pain of losing her - and would have to live with that pain forever. 

So, no. He was not going to do that to her. Instead, he could spend her lifetime - just a few drops of time in relation to the oceans of eternity - watching her from afar, until the their paths separated again.

Or, that was his plan. And for a few weeks, it works for him, keeping his distance, watching from afar. 

Until one night, when he is sitting in his cabin after dinner, and as hard as he tries, he cannot get his mind to focus on anything else but  _ her _ , but how much he wants her. And he can do nothing to stop himself from getting up from his table, leaving his cabin, and knocking on her door, looking just as surprised as she does when she opens the door between them. 

“Emma,” he breathes, pushing past her into her cabin, and it is not until she says, “What’s wrong?” that he even realizes he must look distressed. After taking a deep breath, he smiles up at her, and the fear on her face fades, leaving the beginnings of a smile in its wake. 

“Nothing’s wrong, love. I just-I wanted to come and see how you were adjusting to life on the sea. It’s been a little bit, and I realized I haven’t checked in for a while.” His words come out quickly, coming up with the lie on the spot, but Emma doesn't seem to notice. 

“Well, I really appreciate that, captain. It certainly is a different life than the one I knew in Corona. Being on the sea is one thing, but being around actual people is something else entirely. I was so alone for so long. There were years that I would have given anything just to see another person.”

Killian sits down next to her on the bed, leaving enough space between them to keep their legs from touching. His voice soft, he asks, “How long - how long were you alone?”

Her eyes fall to the floor with his question, and he hopes that he had not crossed a line. “Years,” she says finally,barely a whisper. “I spent years alone in that tower, so many that I lost count. It was just me up there for almost as long as I can remember, after he stopped visiting.”

“Who?”

“I know I knew his name at some point, but I have since forgotten it, though I could never forget how he looked. When I was little, he would come every few days with new books, food, anything I might need. He brought Lily one day, too, said she was cursed like I was and needed the castle as her home. 

“And then he started showing up less and less, until one day the things I realized I needed starting appearing soon after I thought of them, like he has put some kind of spell on the tower. Books, clothing, food. I always hoped that if I wished for someone to come, not even to rescue me, just to be there with me, that he would come back, that anyone would make it past Lily just to give me someone to talk to. And I had almost given up hope that anyone would ever find me, join me - especially rescue me - when you showed up.”

“What do you remember about this man that put you in the tower?” he asks, suddenly filled with a curiosity to learn as much as he can about her, and about the man that locked her away.

“He was awful. I wouldn't even call him a man, to be honest. He may have been built like one, but he was something else entirely; even someone like me who has no memory of other people knew something was subhuman about him. His scaly skin, his pointed teeth, his long fingernails, and even his voice, he was just so…”

Where words fail her, Killian finds one, seeing the vision of the man she is describing in his own mind, though he had only ever seen him once before. “Reptilian.” 

She whips her head to face him, green eyes wide with a sudden excitement. “Reptilian, yes. But how did you know? Do you know of this man?”

“Aye, I know of him. Rumpelstiltskin, the Dark One.” 

“Rumplestiltskin,” she says again, feeling the name in her mouth after so long. “Yes, that was him. Rumplestiltskin. But how do you know of him, Captain?”

“He killed me,” he says, the words slipping through his teeth before he can stop them, before he can continue to keep his secret from her, and then, suddenly, it is too late. For a moment, she does not respond, and he has a glimmer of hope that she did not hear him; but then she turns her inquisitive eyes up to him, and he knows he is wrong. 

“What?” 

“He killed me,” he says again, louder. If he is going to tell her his secret, he is going to tell her all of it. “About thirty years ago. My brother and I had just returned home from a voyage the king sent us on, to retrieve a plant from another realm, a plant that he told Liam was a medicine, but a man from the other realm said was a poison. My brother wanted to prove me wrong, fought for the integrity of the king to his death, in my arms, on this ship. I rallied man together to take down the king, but the Dark One killed me before I could finish. But I was - I was brought back, revived by a man on my crew who was a vampire, and we created our own crew of men and women on the brink of death to fight back against the king, and we killed him. I killed him.”

For a few moments, she is silent, and he does not blame her. Sometimes even he does not believe his own story, and he cannot even imagine everything going through her head, as someone who was already so sheltered from the world for such a long time. 

“I know it's a lot to take in, Emma,” he says after her silence continues for a little while longer, but she reaches over and puts her hand on his knee, stopping him from saying anything further. 

“No, that's not it. Well, yes, it  _ is  _ a lot to take in, but that's not what I was thinking about. I was thinking how it actually makes so much sense, how it answers questions I have not yet been able to completely form. Why you don't have regular mealtimes, why we can go so long without returning to land. Things that I have realized were not the way I expected them to be, yet could not yet find an explanation as to why and did not know how to ask.”

“So you're - you are okay with this, with… me, the way I am?”

“The way I see it, Captain, I don't have much of a choice, now, do I?” She smiles at him again gently, lightly squeezing his leg before pulling her hand away - but he catches it in his own, setting them together on the bed between them.

“Killian,” he says, feeling the corner of his lips curl up into the beginnings of a smile that he cannot stop from coming. “Please, love, call me Killian.” 

“Killian,” she says softly, and he suddenly loves the way it sounds slipping out from between her teeth, the way her eyebrows move ever so slightly with it, just as she sees the light behind his piercing blue eyes and a smile that she has not seen on his face since that first day, one she imagines he does not let the crew see often. 

Then, before either of them know what is happening, their lips are locked together in a kiss, the one thing Killian had hoped he would be able to restrain himself enough to resist - and the one thing he then finds himself unable to stop collecting from her. 

Gentle at first, it deepens quickly into the type of real, emotional kiss that Killian has not experienced for years, since before he joined the King’s Navy - and something that Killian can tell that Emma has never experienced as he guides her through it, though he does not seem to care very much. Her face is soft and warm under his hand, the curve of his hook pressed gently on her back; the edge of her hairline tickles the tips of his fingers, and she mirrors his action, curling her fingers around his dark hair and using it as an anchor to pull him closer to her. 

But when he feels his body start to warm up, a fire that starts deep within his stomach, he pulls himself away, just enough to look into her eyes. When he opens his, hers are still closed, a gentle smile spreading across her face, and he can feel her fingers begin to loosen their grip on his hair. 

When she does finally open her eyes, he finds himself more amazed by them than ever before. They seem to be shining brighter than before, though he cannot tell if it is from the kiss or just because he is closer. Have they always had shimmering gold flecks in them? And how has he managed to never notice the rings around her irises the same blue-green color as the raging sea?

“Not bad for a beginner, love,” he jokes, hoping that she can find the smile in his eyes.

She must be able to, because he feels the smile form on her face under his hand. “That just means we’re going to have to practice more.”

She leans back into him, finding his lips with hers again, but this time he pulls away before he can get carried away, exhibiting a level of self-control that he was not sure he still had inside of him. He needs to protect her, to save her - not to lead her through temptation. 

After staring at her for a moment, he does not even trust himself, and pushes himself up off the bed. 

“Killian, I’m sorry - “

But he whips around to face her, stopping her words with his own: “No, love, it is I who am sorry. I should never have done that. I should never have come here.”

“That’s not true, and you know it.”

When he finds her eyes again, they are as serious as her words, but after a moment, she gently turns the corner of her lips up in a soft half-smile. 

“Aye.”

She reaches out towards him, and after staring at it for just a moment, he takes it with his good hand.

“Please, don’t go.” Her voice is barely more than a whisper, but he can hear her sense of longing in it. 

 

Killian’s eyes are drawn to her once again. Emma stands against the railing of the ship, her perfect blonde curls flowing in the sea breeze, glowing in the bright morning sun. Lily, now about the size of newborn kitten, sits perched atop her shoulder, basking in the sun. Although the collection of belongings she brought with her from the tower was small (and consisted mainly of books), Killian does not think in the few months she has been at sea with them, he has ever seen her wearing the same colored dress, though they have all been of similar style: flowing, but only knee-length, with thin straps over the shoulders. 

He does not know how long he stood at the helm looking at her, watching her watch the waves, but he has been enthralled with her beauty, with everything about her, since she swung open her windows. 

He is so wrapped up in her, in her hair and her figure and her beauty, that he does not hear Will calling his name the first time from the crow’s nest. Or the second, even when Emma turns to him. By the time he reaches the third time, Robin has crossed the deck to stand next to him, but it is still entranced until he places his hand on Killian’s shoulder. 

“Captain,” he mumbles, trying not to draw any more attention to them, but when Killian finally pulls his gaze from her, everyone on the deck is watching him. 

He turns to Robin, trying to recover, and follows Robin’s eyes up to Will above them. “Aye, Captain Jones! There’s a ship approaching off port! They’re flying Royal banners, but ones I have never seen before!”

Killian’s eyes meet Emma’s across the deck, and she knows exactly what the look is for. Her eyes search the deck for the young girl, Alice, who she finds also searching for her. 

Taking her by the hand, they head back into her chambers, an agreement they made when she first came on board: any sign of an approaching ship, she and Alice and her little companion were to stay in her chambers, even though her shipmates were immortal and almost unkillable, and, in just moments, Lily could grow from just a few inches to almost as big as the ship herself. Killian had promised her that if a situation arose where they would need the protection of Lily, he would let her know; but he did not foresee that being necessary, given the close to fifty years he had spent on the sea. 

He takes the telescope out of the pocket of his jacket, then points it in the direction of the approaching ship. Like Will, he also does not recognize the colors at first, and hands the telescope to Robin.

“Camelot, Killian,” Robin mumbles, but he has already realized just what they are up against. 

“Aye, and Camelot and David were on good terms a few years back, but he also said not to always trust their alliance. Safer to fly his colors than our own, I wager.” He collapses the telescope and puts it back in his pocket. “Fly the Misthaven colors! We sail under David’s banners today!”

The crew follows suit, raising David’s flag up the mast: a green spade and a silver sword, crossed on a field of pure white -  _ snow white.  _ A realm of farmers turned fighters. The idea was Snow’s, but David drew it himself - a fact he did not want many to learn, though he confided it in Killian one of the many times they made port in the safety of Misthaven. But the flag us not even halfway up the mast before Camelot’s ship fires their first cannon shot. 

 

##  **III.**

Emma hears the shot, a crack like thunder that echoes over the waves, and rushes to the window, standing next to Alice. It does not quite reach the  _ Roger,  _ but she feels its impact with the water. Her window faces the approaching ship, and she can see the shots fire from the cannon before she hears them. 

“Emma, are we - are we going to be okay?” She can hear the shake in the young girl’s voice, and she tries to calm her by taking her hand. 

“Of course we’re going to be okay. We’re on a ship full of undying pirates.”

When she smiles at Alice, though, she does not return the gesture, her face instead painted with worry. 

Another shot is fired, this one landing closer to the ship but still failing to hit it. She feels her heartbeat in her chest: fast and hard, more intense than she has ever felt it before. She closes her eyes, trying to focus on her breath, find something to calm her down, but instead of her breath, she begins to focus on something else, at first without realizing it: the rocking of the boat, the movement of the waves around her. She stops hearing the cannon fire, even from the guns right below her, stops feeling the shaking of the impact against the ships. She can  _ feel _ the water beneath her, as if she is connected to it. It awakens a part of her that she was previously unaware of, never even imagined: suddenly, she is a part of the sea, can feel it moving around her as she commands it. She can feel the  _ Roger _ around her, and the enemy ship moving towards them, bringing more than just a barrage of cannon fire: there is a man aboard the ship, but she cannot make out his features, though she can sense the power that he wields, the power that is churning the seas around her, and that seems to be creating a storm in the sky from the churned water. With all the strength within her, she focuses on the sea, trying with all she has to calm the waves. She hears crashing around her, somewhere in the back of her mind, but it does not break her concentration. 

She can feel it beginning to work, silencing the waves around her as best she can - though, given that she has no idea what she is doing or why it is working, all she can do is concentrate and hope for the best with all she has. 

And then it all falls apart around her--literally. Pieces of the deck fall around her, crashing to the ground, and she is suddenly back on the  _ Roger _ , back in the guest chambers, with Lily looking up at her from the window sill, Alice’s bright eyes looking to her for help, but she has nothing. She turns around towards the wreckage, and he is there: Killian, the pirate captain that both rescued and saved her. She can see in his eyes that something is wrong, something there that she has never seen before: where there is always hope and excitement, she instead sees pain as the  _ Roger  _ crumbles around them. 

“I’m sorry, Emma. I am so, so sorry,” he cries, pressing the palm of his hand against her face, tears running down his cheeks. His emotion moves her. “I promised I would keep you safe on the  _ Roger _ , that I would protect you from harm, and I could not even do that. Take Lily and Alice and try to get to safety, but I’m afraid that will not even work, since our attacker has magic behind them.” He turns his eyes to the ground, defeated. 

But, somehow, Emma is not afraid, not upset. Instead, she is calm, collected- much more so than he. She reaches down and takes his hand in hers, and his eyes shoot back up to meet hers. 

“You have done more for me than anyone has ever done, Killian. Isn’t that enough?”

He is in awe of her. “I wish I could see it that way, love. All I wanted to do was save you, and I could not even do that.”

She squeezes his hand in hers, then reaches up with the other and wipes the tear off his cheek. 

“Don't you see, Killian?” She pauses, waiting for Killian to meet her eyes once again, then continues: “You  _ have  _ rescued me, more than anyone else could have. I may never know who my parents were, or why I was put in that tower, but I know for sure that I was made to live on the sea. I know you have noticed it, too. I know - I can’t explain it, but I know that it will all be okay.” Right as she says this, part of the railing from the deck crashes through the ceiling and lands just a few inches from them. 

He takes her in his arms, overcome with affection for her, with a need to protect her. “I reckon if you lower one of the dinghies on the far side of the ship you can get out of range from the Camelot ship, or tell them that you were our prisoners, be out of harm’s way before the  _ Roger  _ finds herself at the bottom of the ocean. That way you’ll at least have - “

And then, she does something that surprises her as much as him: “Come with me, Killian,” she whispers, her forehead pressed against his. When she opens her eyes, his are still closed, contemplating. 

He thinks about saying yes, about taking her hand and escaping this horror with her by his side. He  _ wants  _ to say yes, wants to take her and leave all of this danger behind, suddenly wishing for a life when he was not tied to the sea in the way he is - they both are - where he could build her the kind of life she deserves, a life that he has never before dreamt of. 

But when he opens his eyes, he looks not only into her eyes, but into the pair that he sees behind her, those of his brother, looking up at him. With this, he knows the answer, one that he felt deep within himself with Emma’s proposition. 

“A captain always goes down with his ship, Emma. It would be bad form were I to leave my ship to go down by herself.” He meets her eyes, sees a sadness that was not there before. “I can’t - Emma, I truly am sorry.” He rests his forehead against hers, taking her cheek in his palm. 

“Are you - are you going to be okay?”

“If there’s one thing I’m good at, love, it’s surviving.” The devilish smile he flashes her reminds her of the first day they met, of the mysterious man who somehow found himself sitting outside her window, where she had never seen anyone before. “You should get on your way, before it’s too late.”

And she does. As much as it hurts to leave everything behind, to watch him watch her float away, she must. He does not move from the spot by the railing where he and Robin lowered their dinghy into the water, his bright blue eyes reflecting the sun against the water, locked with hers for as long as he can make them out. He does nothing to prepare the ship, because nothing would help - his pride and joy is sinking, and there is nothing he can do to stop it. 

With Lily on her lap and Alice on the seat in front of her, her small bag of belongings at her feet, Emma does not take her eyes off the ship, feeling the streams of tears sliding down her cheeks. She hears the same from Alice, who has come to see the men on the ship as the only family she has ever had - something Emma understands more than even Killian will ever know - and she reaches across the space between them, wrapping her arm around the young girl’s shoulders. 

Together, they watch the  _ Jolly Roger  _ get smaller and smaller, both because of the distance and the fact that it has begun sinking into the sea. When it finally sinks, it is just them, alone on the water: the attacking ship has somehow disappeared, and for a moment, everything is silent, until Alice turns to her, face wet with tears, and when she speaks, the rasp is barely more than a whisper. 

“What do we do now, Emma?”

“I guess all we can do is what Killian suggested: either try to get away from the view of the other ship, or row to them and say we were their prisoners and we escaped.”

“But that’s not true!”

“I know it’s not, but it’s the best way to survive.”

Alice does not seem to have a response to this, and for just a moment, the only noise between them is the crashing of the waves.

And then, she hears something from below the water. Her companions hear it too, and look to her. They hear it again, though it is difficult to make out over the waves. Then she figures it out, hears it: her name, something from within the sea calling to her, calling her name. 

“I - I have to go. You know that, right?” She turns to Alice first, her eyes wide with amazement as to what is unfolding before her eyes, the sea calling to the only person she has left in the world. But of course she has to go, because it’s not every day that your destiny literally calls your name - and, understanding this, Alice just nods, wiping another tear from her eye. 

Turning to the little dragon still curled up in her lap, Lily also nods her head, then nuzzles her head against Emma’s stomach. “I know you’ll be safe, my girl. You can fend for yourself, but obviously not in the sea.” She wraps her arms around the little dragon, who flaps her wings out and pushes herself back into Emma’s chest - a hug, something Emma never imagined she would be receiving from a dragon, especially not a dragon that she cares for so intensely. After a moment, Emma loosens her grip around Lily, who flaps a few feet from her. 

“I’ll see you soon enough, my darling friends.” It is when she says this that Emma realizes that she has tears in her eyes. As much as she loves the two girls sitting before her, she needs to go, needs to see what in the sea is calling to her. 

She eyes her bag sitting slumped at the bottom of the dinghy, trying to decide whether she needs to bring it with her or not. If she leaves it in the boat, she is leaving behind all of her important possessions are in that bag, everything she decided to take with her from the tower and the few things she has accumulated since joining Killian on the  _ Roger.  _ But while this thought scares her -  _ terrifies her to no end _ \- she hears her name from the sea again, and is calmed. 

So with the bag in the boat, literally leaving all she has ever known behind and starting anew, she dives headfirst into the water.

The silence from above the waves was deafening compared to the silence she finds herself in below the waves. The only sound she hears is the beating of her own heart in her chest, pounding in her ears. After a moment, she slowly opens her eyes, unaware of how it would make her feel: she knows she should not be able to see in the dense saltwater of the sea, but somehow it feels like the right thing to do.

And she was right. The spectacle of the sea takes her breath away - and without thinking about it, she gasps out loud, only to find that  _ she can breathe.  _ She has read enough books to know that this is not normal, but here she is, nonetheless breathing under the water. 

She takes a few slow breaths, then begins to really take in everything around her, the vast sea of nothingness that she has plunged herself into. The few fish that are around her have stopped swimming, looking at her; a whale a while below her goes about its swimming. Everything seems so surreal. And then she turns around, and behind her sits the most surprising part of this whole adventure so far: a mermaid, with a long, silver-blue tail and shining blonde hair, a smile on her unblemished face. Emma feels her eyes go wide, unable to do anything else in her state of shock. 

“Princess,” the mermaid says, then bows slowly. 

_ She cannot be talking to me,  _ Emma thinks, and even looks over her shoulder to see who the mermaid is talking to, but no one is there. “You - there has been some kind of mistake. I am not a princess. Far from it, actually.”

The mermaid leans towards her, the smile on her face growing. “No, your highness, I’m afraid that you are wrong there. You may not have been a princess on land, but now you are home.” Her voice is soft and musical, like a song on the breeze or the soft tinkling of bells.

“This is not my home, my home is - “

“The tower was not your home, Princess. The sea is your home.”

Emma takes a moment to process this: if this mermaid knew that she lived in a tower, then she must know who Emma is - and she may even be right. 

But if Emma is a mermaid, was born a child of the sea, then why was she in a tower in the first place?

And, perhaps more importantly, who is she? How is she the princess?

Once again, the mermaid in front of her answers her before she has even spoken: “I know you must be confused, worried, and perhaps even scared. But I promise you, princess, all of your questions will be answered in due time. Though for now, all I ask of you is to trust me enough to believe me, and come with me to Poseidon’s kingdom - your kingdom, that the King has been watching over for you while you were away.”

Confused, worried, and scared as she is, Emma cannot help but believe what this mermaid is telling her. It would explain a lot, especially how she has been feeling since she started sailing the sea with Killian, and why she felt like the right thing to do was leave her possessions on a dinghy and dive into the open ocean. And, with nothing left to lose, she nods her head and follows the mermaid as she swims away. 

  
  


She could tell by his countenance that King Poseidon was not her father: everywhere Emma radiated light, he was dark. He is a large, dark-skinned merman, over seven feet from head to the tip of his dark blue-green tail, with strong muscles covering his whole body; long, dark hair that sways with every movement of the current, with dark, knowing eyes to match. His eyes lit up when her guide led her through the doors of the throne room, obviously knowing who she was, but they both needed to know more. Emma needed to know who she was, what led her to the life that she had come to know as normal; Poseidon needed to know how this little girl, that he failed so terribly when she was just an infant, defied everything that he had been told was possible and made it back to him. 

But once she has become comfortable in her throne, the place that she had been born to sit, Poseidon is most excited to tell her story to the one person who has always needed to hear it most: his princess herself, the one person he was sure he was never going to get to see again, and while this story does answer many of Emma’s questions, it also creates many more. Poseidon starts from the very beginning:

“I remember the first time I saw your parents. The Dark One, Rumplestiltskin-” Emma is surprised to hear his name again after knowing all he had done to Killian. “-came to me and said that he had found the one that would inherit my kingdom - I had no heirs, had failed this kingdom in that way long before it was ever passed down to me. I sat in this very chair.

“ ‘King Poseidon,’ he sneered, his voice mocking. ‘Though what good is a king that cannot find the next ruler of his kingdom?’ I despised every moment I spent with that man, but he was the only one that could solve the problem. I had come to him years before and asked for help, but all he would tell me was that ‘all magic comes with a price,’ and that he would solve my problems when the answer arose, and not when I needed it to be solved. He sure was an enigma, the bastard.

“Anyway, I was sitting right here, and with a snap of his fingers, a mirror appeared next to him. A flick of the wrist, and an image appeared: a man and a woman, wearing peasant clothing but sitting on a throne. The woman was pregnant - very pregnant. ‘That child will be your heir,’ he told me, pointing to the mirror. ‘But you will both have to suffer before she can take her place. All magic comes with a price, and this suffering is the one you will have to pay if you agree to this. Her childhood will be one filled with sadness, and her upbringing will be the next tragedy of the gods.’

“I had no idea what this was supposed to mean, and at this point I honestly did not even try to push him further, try to decipher his riddles. I knew that this was what I needed to do for the kingdom, and so I agreed. 

“He told me that the vision I saw was not one that was true yet, that the woman was not yet carrying you in her belly, but if I gave him five years, he could come back, and she would be my heir. Again, I agreed.

“And as soon as I did so, he disappeared, a sick grin on his face.

“I thought about you every day, waited for the day when he was going to bring you to me. I called on him for months after those years passed, but he continued to avoid me. When he did finally come back, it was almost two years after he had promised, and you were not with him. At first, I thought something went wrong, that I had done something wrong and lost my heir. And that was when he finally told me the rest of the story, ten years after I stupidly and prematurely agreed to a deal I did not fully understand. 

“You were born, a happy and healthy baby girl, unknowingly the heir to two different kingdoms, though because of the Dark One and his deal with me, your fate had already been decided. As soon as you were old enough, he took you from your parents and locked you in a tower in a small, faraway land, guarded by a dragon that was enchanted not to keep all savior so from you, but only to allow those that would lead you to your fate. This made no sense to me - how do you train a dragon to do that? - but it was far from the most important question I had. 

“I asked him when you would come to me, when I would finally be able to meet the fated heir of my kingdom. And he laughed at me. He said this was when the story left his hands, when it is left in the fate of another man - a ‘twice-cursed pirate captain with a soul clean enough to change destinies’ was what he said to me, something that has stuck with me for so long, but this made less sense than the weird cursed riddle from years before, so of course I did not question him. He repeated that this man would be the true captain of your fate, the one that would lead you to choosing your destiny and leading you here, if that was what you wanted, and then he clapped his scaly, reptilian hands together and disappeared.

“That day was twenty years ago, and I have not seen him since. But he promised that one day, you would find yourself here, and he has proven himself correct.”

Poseidon sits back in his throne, studying her for the first time. Emma’s eyes are closed as she takes in everything she has just heard, which is a lot for one day. 

“He was fated to save me,” she says finally, mostly to herself, then turns to the king of the sea next to her, asking the one question at the front of her mind: “Is my destiny why the  _ Jolly Roger _ had to be destroyed? Because he did not deserve that, if it was all my fault. He saved me.”

This is about the last question Poseidon expects to hear after all he has explained to her; but at the same time, he  _ is _ king of the sea, and therefore knows when ships enter his domain. 

After a moment, he decides on a logical answer: “If he was fated to bring you to your destiny, here with me, and the sinking of the ship was what ultimately led you to the water, then I would say it is a logical assumption to make.” 

“He didn’t deserve that. Even though he was a vampire, he was only trying to save me.”

He then leans towards her, looking around the throne room, though he knows they are the only ones in here, and whispers in her ear, “I can bring it back, you know.”

“You would - you would do that? For him?”

“Well, no,” he replies, serious for a moment, but then he smiles at her. “But I would do it for you. You have been brought here, you have discovered who you are. I see no reason I cannot bring this man his ship back, as long as you can give me enough evidence to prove this man is worthy of another chance, of getting his ship back and returning to the sea. Would you agree?”

“Yes, yes, I agree.”

“What makes him so worthy? What does he do that betters the sea?”

Emma smiles at him. “He has an incredible heart. He has used his situation not to better himself, but to better those around him. He uses what he was given to save men from death and oppression, and then uses those men to crew his ship that steals riches from the wealthy and delivers them to those who need them.”

Poseidon returns her smile after he hears this - he has heard stories of many men on the seas during his time, and he has most definitely heard of this man, the vampire captain who steals from the rich - but he never thought that he would have the opportunity to take his side. Until today. “Well, Emma, this man is worthy of getting his ship back. Perhaps more worthy than any story that has ever been brought to me.”

She takes a deep breath, gulps, and looks up at the big man. “And what about me? I am here, I know who I was meant to be. Would there be any reason I cannot go back with the ship, until you need me to return?”

Poseidon smiles at her, and finally, there is hope again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the read! Stop by on tumblr and leave some love, if you want! @thejollyroger-writer


	3. Part Three: Forever and Ever

## I.

The warmth of the sun on his skin is the first thing he notices, a feeling that he has not been able to relish in for many long years. Taking a deep breath, he gives himself a moment to bask in it.

And then he notices something else: while the last thing he remembers is the mast of the ship falling on him and knocking him unconscious, he was expecting to find himself on a beach somewhere, washed up with chunks of the _Roger_ and perhaps a few on his men.

But he is not on a beach. Where he should feel the surf breaking over him, he is dry; and where he should feel the soft, sinking sand beneath him, he is instead laying on something hard, something that feels… Familiar?

When he opens his eyes, he is stunned.

No, he is not on a beach; he is on the deck of the _Jolly Roger,_ in one piece beneath him. He goes to stand up, but is immediately lightheaded and settles for sitting. He looks around him some more, searching for an answer to how he got here, and whether he is dreaming - or dead, really, truly, after-life dead.

And he must be, for behind him, the door to his chambers swing open, and he sees her, Emma Swan, brilliant and radiant in soft white breeches and a light blue tunic, smiling at him.

“Killian, you shouldn't be up yet, you’re -”

But he can’t help himself. “Emma,” he breathes, and the sight of her is all he needs to find enough strength to stand, quickly filling the space between them. He takes her in his arms, still not knowing whether she is real or not, and presses his lips against hers. When he feels her against him, feels the weight of her as she leans into him, the warmth of her body against him, he knows she must be real.

They keep this kiss for a few seconds, then together they deepen it, melting into the other. He never wants to let go of her, but he must; though when he does, he still keeps his arms around her, running his hand over her back, her shoulders, her hips.

“Emma, how did you - you got the _Roger_ back for me?”

“Shhh,” she whispers, her hands on either side of his face. “We have eternity to discuss what happened.” She looks deep into the oceans of his eyes, memorizing as much of him as she can. “Just kiss me again.”

And it is a command that he cannot deny her. He pushes her against the door of the cabin behind them, pushing his body against hers, demanding to know how every curve of her feels against every curve of him. He does not want to stop, and for a few minutes, they do not, simply loving how they feel together, and the fact that it is possible to enjoy.

But Killian’s mind will not slow down - he needs to know - and as much as it hurts him, he takes a step back from her. “Emma, I - I’m afraid I will be unable to focus until you answer my questions.” He seems ashamed of himself, turning his eyes to the deck, but she smiles at him.

“Well, I wouldn't want you too distracted to focus.” She takes his hand and sits on the deck, pulling him down with her. She tells him of the dinghy, of her travels into the ocean, and of the story Poseidon told her. How she was destined to rule the sea one day, and how he was destined to bring her home.

And then she told him how she pled for him, fought for him and the _Roger_ , to the large, black King of the Sea that she had never met before. Argued for the goodness of his heart and fought for the perfection of his soul. But by the end of the conversation, she had convinced Poseidon that Killian was different, was worthy of getting his ship back, to continue his after-life’s work of sailing the seas for the good of the others.

He turns his bright blue eyes up to her, amazed by every word of her story. “You - you gave up your kingdom for me?”

She can’t help but smile at the ultimatum that his head came to. “No, no, not quite. See, mermaids, like vampires, are immortal. I still have the claim to the throne, am the princess of the sea, but I would not have to take the throne until Poseidon decides to give it up, which could not be for a few more hundred years.”

“So you were given the opportunity to stay under the sea, where you know you are safe and comfortable… and you gave it up to stay here with me? To _save_ me?”

“Of course I did, Killian.”

He takes a long moment to look into her eyes, trying to find the logic behind everything that has happened since he brought her onto the _Roger_ \- and he finds an answer that terrifies him, though at the same time, he hopes it to be true.

“Why, Emma? Why did you do all this for me?”

Now it’s her turn to look to him for the answer, hoping that she has not made the wrong decision.

“Do you not know?” is the answer she decides on, losing herself in the endless light in his eyes, and after a moment, he fills the space between them, and they pick up where they left off just a few minutes ago.  He guides her head down to the deck, and feels the need to learn every part of her: the contours of her lips against his, the taste of her tongue, the feel of her teeth. He never wants to let go - and now, never has to.

Killian has been with women almost every time they made port for the last forty years, since he discovered the magic of sex when he was just a young Naval man, but none of them have been for any reason other than his insatiable appetite. But it is in the arms of Emma Swan that he learns what it means to really, truly make love to a woman. But even though they now have eternity to be together, he takes her right then and there, on the deck of the _Roger,_ as if today were the last day of their lives.

For the first time ever, he takes his time, worrying not so much about his ending, but the whole experience. He gives everything he has to her, spends every moment of the experience to worship her like the goddess she is, from her hair to her legs, taking the time to begin to memorize every inch of her.

Even after the fact, he cannot bring himself to let go of her, holds her against him as if his life depends on it. He is amazed by her, by her very existence - and part of him believes that if he were to let go of her, she would disappear, that something happened to his head, something severe enough to cause hallucinations, dreams intense enough to feel this real.

But when she turns in his arms, pulling the light blanket that covers them with her, and rests her chin against his sternum, running her fingers through his thick patch of dark chest hair, her warmth against him, a feeling that he had though he had lost forever,  he knows, _no, this cannot be a dream._ Even in his wildest imagination, he could never come up with a scene like this, holding his own little piece of perfection against him.

“Killian,” she mumbles, looking up at him.

“Aye, love,” he whispers back into her hair.

“Why have you done so much to help me? Why did you save me in the first place?”

He spends a moment staring into her eyes, deciding just how to word the truth without turning her away. “I decided to rescue you because I heard that no man was capable of doing so and I had far too much pride to turn down that sort of a challenge.” To his surprise, she only chuckles at this confession, and he continues.  “But what I found in that tower surprised me more than most anything else - and remember, I woke up one day to find myself no longer dead.”

“What surprised you?”

“You did, Emma. Just seeing you there was surprise enough, with your beauty and all. I may even go so far as to say that I have loved you from the very moment you opened that window and saw me sitting on your ledge, and that surprised me more than I ever thought possible.”

“Then why did you let me go all those months without telling me so?”

“Where would that have put us, when we both believed you to be mortal? After all the pain I have already been through, I would much rather endure one human lifetime of coveting something I can’t have than spending all eternity loving someone I was only allowed to be with for a certain number of years.”

“You - you were afraid to lose me? Already, after only a few months?”

He can’t help but smile at her. “Aye, of course I was. A good pirate always knows the true price of a treasure as soon as he comes across it.”

* * *

 

Together, they sail the _Roger_ to the port closest to where it was last destroyed: Misthaven, in all its ironic protection - and at the pub where Killian and his men most often find themselves, Killian is surprised to find much of his lost crew, who washed up on the shore and did the one thing they know best: find a place with a hot meal and hearty ale.

Upon seeing their captain, who they all thought had been lost forever, the tavern fills with a cacophony of cheer, startling the rest of the guests who do not know or do not recognize the man that just pushed through the doors.

Joining his crew at one of the tables, one hand holding a tankard of ale that one of his men handed to him, and the other around Emma’s shoulders, it does not take long for one of the crew to ask the question on everyone’s mind - and it happens to be Robin.

“Captain, what are we going to do now?”

“What do you mean, Locksley?” he asks, forgetting his crew still thinks the _Jolly Roger_ is still in pieces at the bottom of the ocean.

“I mean, _what are we going to do now_? All we have is a gang of misfit immortals and the woman you rescued from a tower, somehow still back here with us again.”

“Actually, I’m also immortal.” Emma juts in before Killian can respond, and everyone’s eyes turn to her, amazed. “Mermaid princess.”

“Of course, the band of immortals rescued the mermaid princess,” a voice says behind them, and Killian turns to see his brother, thankful he did not choose to appear earlier that day - or, if he did, thankful he kept it to himself.

“The mermaid princess who rescued our bloody ship from an eternity at the bottom of the ocean!” Killian announces, raising his tankard in her direction. The rest of the crew follows suit, raising another cheer for her.

“It was - really, it was the least I could do after all you have done for me.”

* * *

 

Unlike his first meeting with David and Snow, Killian arrives right as he was supposed to, pushing through the doors with his good hand tightly wrapped around Emma’s.

“There’s no reason to be so nervous, Killian,” she says softly, barely audible over the loud clanking of the soles of his boots against the hard stone floor - and definitely not audible all the way across the room, where the two of them sit on their thrones.

“He sunk my ship, Emma!”

“And that’s why we’re here to meet with them.”

Not for the first time, he is amazed by her, by her coolness and how collected she seems to be. He knows (also not for the first time) that, if his heart were still beating, still pumping blood through his body, it would be pounding in his chest, trying its very best to escape. But even still, she walks calmly beside him, taming him in ways he never thought he would need to be tamed.

“But we’re also here for the girl,” she adds, watching his jaw as it clenches and unclenches.

“Aye, for Alice. Do you really think she found her way aboard that magician’s ship?”

“For her sake, Killian, I hope she did, or else she may still be floating in the middle of the ocean.”

Before he can come up with a snappy comment, they have made it to the thrones. Killian bows slightly - much more submissive than their first meeting - and Emma follows suit.

“Captain Jones,” Snow greets, but her eyes do not waver from Emma. For some reason, she finds herself unable to take her eyes off the blonde before her, sure that somewhere deep inside her is a memory, something so long suppressed that it does not even feel real - something that suddenly becomes unlocked with just a glance into this mystery woman’s shining green eyes. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for a girl.”

“Captain, this isn’t the appropriate place - “ David starts, and Emma sees something - embarrassment? - pass over Killian’s face before Snow’s hand on her husband’s shoulder stops the words erupting from his mouth.

“A young girl, brought on a ship?” Killian asks timidly.

Both Emma and Killian watch as Snow and David share a silent glance.

“What is she to you?” David speaks first.

“Listen, mate, just because I’m a pirate doesn’t mean I can’t treasure things that aren’t gold.” His voice is a low growl, and David takes a step back, immediately sure that he may have overstepped. There is a fierce fire behind the pirate’s eyes, and for a moment, David finds himself afraid.

But he watches as the blonde reaches out and gently sets her hand on his shoulder, calmly locking her eyes with the storms raging behind his.

“My apologies, Captain, I meant no -”

Snow cuts him off before he can embarrass himself further. “I think I know of the girl you are searching for.”

Killian’s eyes light up again, but this time, it’s not as terrifying--not a flash of anger, but something softer.

“Does that mean you know the bastard that sunk my ship?”

Killian can tell that this question surprises the pair in front of them, and while Snow seems to be speechless, David manages to get out one word: “Arthur.”

 

## II.

“I don’t care how many kingdoms you’ve conquered, that still doesn’t give you permission to sink ships in my realm, Arthur!”

This had been going on for a while already, the bickering between David and Arthur, with quick snips of input from Killian.

“They were flying a pirate flag!”

“And _my_ flag! You shot down a ship flying _my_ flag in _my_ waters! Technically that’s an act of treason!”

As Killian agrees - again - with David, Snow turns to Emma, a smile further softening her already-soft features. The two of them sit on the opposite end of the long, wooden table, far enough away for them to openly converse while knowing they will not interrupt the argument happening across from them.

“They always have to be so confrontational about everything.”

“I’ve learned that about Killian, and it appears to be the same with your husband.”

“How long have you been aboard the _Jolly Roger_?”

“Just a few months.”

“So then where are you from? Originally?”

After all of the stories Killian and his crew have told her about Snow, the elected leader of Misthaven for over thirty years now, Emma is not surprised that she is taking this opportunity to small talk her while the men stand not ten feet away from them, screaming their heads off.

And Emma loves it.

There is something so calming in her eyes, something that draws Emma to telling her the truth, as outlandish as Killian says it all might be.

“I, uh--actually, I wish I knew where I was from, your highness.”

“Oh!” She stops Emma before she can continue. “Please, call me Snow!”

“Snow,” Emma says, the word odd in her mouth. She has _read_ about snow, about all sorts of weather, but she has been able to experience very few of them; Corona was a fair-weathered country, much like the southernmost parts of Misthaven where she is now, so the worst weather she ever saw was her fair share of thunderstorms. “Well, Snow, I spent as much of my life as I can remember locked in a tower in a land I’ve been told is called Corona, sustained but hidden by the Dark One. And a few months ago, Killian and his brother showed up and rescued me. I may have had a few questions answered by King Triton, but I still have just as many, if not more, about where I'm actually from.”

Emma wasn't sure how she would react, to a story as outlandish as hers--sometimes Emma herself doesn't believe it all, but even given that, Snow sits next to her, her chair turned in Emma’s direction, head resting on her hand propped up on the table, her expression an unchanging one of intrigued curiosity.

“Locked in a tower? In Corona? For how long?”

“According to Triton, just short of thirty years, since I was just a baby. It was Rumplestiltskin's doing.”

With this, her soft brown eyes grow wide. “Thirty years? Thirty years since the _Dark One_ took you as a baby and put you in a tower.”

At first, Emma is ashamed, and her immediate reaction is to apologize. “I’m sorry, I know it sounds unbelievable, but I promise you--”

But Snow reaches out and places her hand on Emma’s arm, meeting her eyes with her own, which are brimming with tears. “Oh, no, Emma, I believe you. Not only do I believe every word you’ve said, but I--I think you’re my daughter.” She turns to David, still heated and red in the argument with Arthur, completely oblivious to the conversation taking place at the other end of the table. “Our daughter. The one the Dark One took from us shortly after we became the rulers of this kingdom. He told us that, if we didn’t hand you over the moment you were born, we would all--this whole kingdom--would live in pain and darkness for years under the chaos you would cause, and the only way to save everyone was to give you up.”

She knows that Snow is trying to explain her actions, hoping Emma understands why they chose the path they did, but none of that matters to her. The only thing she said that means anything at all to her is the fact that Snow is her mother, something she’s never had before. A mother, a father, _a family._

“My mother?”

Snow snaps her head towards Emma, her eyes having fallen to the floor. “What?”

“You’re--you think you’re my mother?”

Snow’s words stop abruptly, replaced instead with a soft smile.

“What are the odds otherwise? How many babies do you think the Dark One can take in the same year, for the same reason?”

“Did he tell you about my destiny?”

The surprise that suddenly covers her face answers Emma’s question before Snow even tries. “Your destiny? My daughter… has a destiny?”

“I take it that means you don’t know I’m apparently a mermaid, too?”

“A mermaid?”

Emma smiles at her before starting her story, somehow completely confident that Snow will believe anything she has to say.

* * *

 

“Killian, please, just slow down!”

He has been moving a mile a minute since he found her in the library, spewing out stories about David and curses about Arthur, plus something about him “really having the damn nerve to put that poor girl in the brig of his ship” even though she could “sure as bloody hell could have taken him down,” which was where Emma stopped him.

He whips around to face her, his bright blue eyes flashing for just a moment before they soften, meeting hers. “What?”

“Slow down,” she says again. “Take a breath, and start over. I haven’t understood anything you’ve said since you stormed in here.”

His shoulders rise and fall with the slow breath he takes, running his fingers through his hair to push the few pieces that have fallen over his forehead back into their rightful place.

“David asked Arthur about Alice.” His words come out slowly, his eyes fixed on a spot on the floor in front of him.

“After he stopped yelling at him, I take it?”

Slowly, he raises his eyes to her, the corner of his mouth sliding into a smile for just a moment. “He sure does like to argue, this Arthur. Shame he didn’t come across my path years ago, before he became king when I could have done something about him.”

“Killian!” she says, hitting his arm with the back of her hand while she flashes him a small smile.

“You know I’m joking, love.”

“Of course, but still. So, tell me about what happened.”

“Well, after he and David stopped yelling at each other about sinking my ship that was _flying his colors_ , I was finally able to ask him about Alice, all alone in the dinghy after the ship went down, and do you have any idea what that tyrant of a man told me?”

Emma expects him to continue, but he doesn’t, and when she turns her eyes up to him, he is watching her expectantly. “What? What did he tell you?”

“He said that he always anticipates everything to be a trick, something that damned magician taught him--”

“Wizard,” Emma corrects, a move that she regrets even before Killian turns his angry, piercing glare towards her.

“Excuse me?”

“He’s, uh… a wizard, not a magician, and there’s a difference, so…” She breathes in and attempts to smile at him, but it stops before it even reaches her face. “Sorry.”

“Something that damned _wizard_ taught him,” he repeats, drawing out the word, but continues anyway. “He expects everything to be a trap, so when they brought her onto the ship, she was crying and terrified and said something about being a prisoner on my ship, which at first I was obscenely taken aback by, because that couldn’t be further than the truth, but then I realized how perfectly bloody _brilliant_ it really was, given they just sank a pirate ship.”

“That was my idea, you know,” she quips in, much more upbeat than the last interruption, and this time, he smiles at her, even if only for a moment.

“That’s far from a surprise, love. So, anyway, Alice tells him that she was a prisoner on the _Roger_ , but because everything is a ‘trap,’ he chooses not to trust her, not to believe her, so he throws her in the brig! Can you even believe it, Emma? A twelve-year-old girl, trapped in the brig of a strange ship?! A ship that sank the one she was just on?”

“They put her in the brig?”

“I know, right!? Thankfully, it only took them a few hours to get here before his crew moved her from the ship to the castle, where they tried to put her in the _dungeons_ , but David refused to let them and instead gave her a room in the castle. Arthur insisted it was under constant watch, and David complied, though Snow would have rather they didn’t.”

“So when you asked them about her, told them that she was from your ship…?”

“It made David feel much better, at least, knowing that she was never really a prisoner on a pirate ship.”

“Of course. So where is she? Do we get to see her soon? I miss that girl.”

“David and Arthur are still arguing about the whole thing, but I saw you leave with Snow and decided I had enough of all that bickering and came to find you. What were you and Snow talking about?”

Suddenly, she is overcome with excitement, momentarily distracted by Killian filling her in with the Alice situation that she forgot her own news, and jumps out of her chair. “She’s my mother!”

“What?”

“Snow and David!”

“Are your parents? How did that--how is that even possible?”

She sits back down in the chair next to his, taking his hand in hers. “Well, Killian, you know, I have very little first-hand experience with that actual act, but…”

His bright blue eyes sparkle with the smile that takes over his face, exactly the response that she was hoping for. “You know that’s not what I meant, love.”

“Of course, of course, but it made you laugh a little. And I was the baby they had shortly after taking the kingdom, but the Dark One told them that they had to give me up for the good of all mankind, or something incredibly drastic like that.”

“So they… gave you over to the Dark One, and let him lock you in a tower for thirty years?”

“Oh, come on, Killian, it’s not like they knew what he was going to do with little baby me. And how do you know it was thirty years ago?”

His hand flies up, scratching his hairline behind his ear. He knows that Emma already knows his story, but adding dates to it, events that tie their lives together but prove his immortality, still kind of freaks him out and pulls a sinking feeling from somewhere deep inside him that she may still be too overwhelmed by his history to keep staying with him.

“I, uh, was there. After the Dark One killed me, and Robin brought me back, the crew that we made to take down the king that killed my brother? Well, that king is the one that Snow was elected to replace, and she was pregnant when that all happened.”

“Wait.” She stands up again, and this time begins pacing in the space in front of him. “So, you’re the reason my parents became royalty, the reason I was the one the Dark One needed me and put me in a tower.” When she turns to face him, her eyes contain the fiercest storm he has ever seen, a scarier green than even the ocean has shown him. “When Triton told me that our fates were wound together, I figured he meant since you rescued me from the tower, but I never, _ever_ thought that you would have been the reason I was put there in the first place.”

“Emma, please,” he pleads, reaching out and grabbing her hand with his, but she pulls it out of his grasp.

“If it weren’t for you and your revenge and needing to kill the king, then I would have had a normal life with my parents! Captain Jones, ruining everyone’s lives but your own!”

Suddenly, he is on his feet, ready to take her shoulder in her hand in hopes of calming her down, but is stopped by the door of the library slamming open, a noise that they both turn towards.

“Killian!” the voice yells, speeding through the room and wrapping her arms around him, though her shoulders only come up to his chest.

“Alice!” he says, suddenly forgetting about the argument that filled the room just moments before.

Emma looks past them to the doorway, where Snow and David are standing, David’s arm wrapped around his wife’s shoulders, and when her eyes meet Snow’s, they share a soft smile. She doesn’t notice when Alice lets go of Killian and turns to her, turning her hug to Emma.

“Hi, sweetie,” she says softly into the girl’s hair, but unlike Killian, she can’t seem to focus on anything besides the argument.

“How are you doing, love?” Killian asks, pressing his palm against Alice’s cheek, though she is still attached at Emma’s hip.

They both watch as her eyes jump to Snow and David, who are still smiling at the whole room, but then she turns back to Killian, her face beginning to turn red.

“It was _awful_ , Killian. I grew up on the _streets_ and the time I spent on that man’s ship was the worst thing I have ever been through! Thankfully, it’s gotten quite a lot better since we made port here and the Queen forced Arthur to give me a normal room, and she has been treating me so perfectly.” She turns back to the door, where they are still standing. “I really can’t thank them enough for everything they’ve done for me. I’ll - I’m not going to lie to you, Killian, as much as I love it on the _Roger_ , I’m going to miss it around here a lot.”

“Actually, I, uh - _we_ \- “ Snow says, filling in the space between the doorway and the three of them, gathered by the sitting area. “We were hoping to discuss that.”

All three of their heads snap towards Snow, who joins then by wrapping her arm around Emma’s shoulders.

“What?”, she asks, turning to her mother.

“Well, David and I talked, and we were wondering--”

“Hoping,” David interjects, and Snow turns to him with a soft smile.

“Hoping,” she repeats. “We were hoping that we could maybe discuss what Alice is going to do when the two of you leave again.”

“What are you talking about, Miss Snow?” Alice asks, her voice making her much smaller than Killian has ever heard it.

“Well, David and I talked about it a little, even before we learned who she was, how she was connected to all… this.” Snow gestures to the space between all of them. “But we were wondering… _hoping_ … that, since, you know… since David and I only had one heir and she, uh… well, she’s heir to the entire realm of the mermaids…”

David had never seen his wife so nervous, her speech cutting in and out, so he walks up next to her and takes her hand in his, taking over for her. “We wanted to ask Alice if she wanted to step up and take the place of the Princess of Misthaven.”

“What?”

“If I want to _what_?”

“ _Bloody hell._ ”

They all share a glance, each of their faces painted with different shades of excitement, though none more excited than Alice herself.

“You want me… to be princess?”

“Actually, my dear, nothing would make us happier.”  


## III.

“You can’t be silent forever, Killian.” Emma’s voice is soft, almost as soft as the waves against the ship. His eyes are fixed on the horizon, sitting next to her on the deck of the _Roger_ , still docked outside Misthaven. He has said nothing since their argument earlier, since Snow and David’s offer to Alice - and the young girl’s acceptance of that offer.

“Listen, I’m - I am really sorry how I reacted earlier. I was harsh, I was rash, and it was wrong. None of it was your fault, and of course you never would have expected anything like that to happen. I mean, you _died_ , and here I am, complaining about how it all affected me -”

Finally, he turns to her so violently that it stops her words as they’re still coming, a crazy sparkle in his shining blue eyes, brighter than the perfect, spotless sky; but at the same time, there’s something about him that is so collected.

“Marry me.”

“What?” She snaps her head to him, taking a good look to try to make sure he’s really there, next to her, really saying what she thinks he’s saying. But, despite how insane it all seems, not only is he _there_ , but he is holding something in his hand - a ring, a gold band with a large emerald the same color as her eyes. They lock eyes for a moment, a crazy, terrific, terrifying moment, but then he turns his back down to the ring in his hand.

“I - I _love_ you, Emma. I have been immortal for thirty years, and already it’s seemed like forever, so I cannot even imagine what hundreds of years is going to feel like. But I do know one thing, and that is that no matter how long the rest of forever feels, I want to spend it with you. I was… I thought that I was going to spend the rest of eternity alone with my crew, but having you here… it’s made me think a lot more about what I want the rest of eternity to look like, and in every situation I draw up in dozens, hundreds, _thousands_ of years, as hard as it all is to picture, you’re right there beside me.”

“Killian,” she says softly, setting her hand on his knee, but his eyes are still locked on his hand, so she reaches out to touch his cheek, pulling his gaze in her direction. His eyes are still wild, far too full of emotion to even begin to describe.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, trying to stand up from next to her, but her hand on his knee pulls him back down.

“Please, don’t be sorry. Don’t be - don’t be anything.” Her hand on his cheek falls to his hand, taking the ring from his hand to look at it. “Because of course I will, Killian. Of course I’ll - I love you, too, Killian. We are supposed to be together for the rest of… eternity.”

This time when he turns to her, his smile is large enough to have taken over his whole face, a whole new form of happiness sparkling in his eyes. “Aye?”

He is radiating enough happiness that it spreads to her. “Of course.”

* * *

“A royal wedding!” Snow claps her hands together, excitedly jumping out of her seat at the table. “I have always dreamed of throwing a royal wedding here!”

“Please, lass, it is not necessarily as exciting as calling it a ‘royal wedding’ would make it seem.” As hard as he may (or may not) be trying, Killian fails to hide the cynicism in his voice. He and Emma have agreed on what they want, but somehow, he thinks it may be a little difficult to get Snow to agree.

“He’s right, Snow,” Emma comments, taking hold of Killian’s hand on top of the table, and he threads his fingers through hers. “We don’t - we don’t need it to be anything monstrous. We just want a… a small ceremony, on the _Roger_ , with the crew and the two of you and Alice.”

“You’re a princess, Emma,” Snow argues. “More than a princess, actually. And with the arrangement I have with you, Killian, you’re almost a prince, for all intents and purposes. It really should be a royal wedding.”

“Snow, dear, let them do what they want. I know she is our daughter, but there’s no reason they even need to get married here in Misthaven. They came to us with this, they want us to be part of their plans. The least we could do is let them do what they want.”

Smiling, Snow lets out a sigh, hitting the table with the palms of her hands and pushing herself away from the table, a movement the rest of them mirror. “Okay! Alright, fine. Of course you’re right, Charming.” She turns to Emma, a smile covering her face. “Let us know what you need from us, please, dear.”

“All we need from you is your presence, love,” Killian tells her, half-returning her smile.

“And of course, David, we want you to marry us.”

David fills the space between himself and Emma, wrapping his arms around her.

“Of course!” he says, kissing her cheek gently. “Is there anything else we can do for you?”

She leans closer to him and whispers, “Just keep him company for a day or two. I need to go talk to King Triton and invite him.” And then she moves back, looks at him with a sudden realization. “If that’s - if that’s alright? I mean, you are king, so if you don’t want another king, then I don’t - I don’t have to go.”

But David just smiles. “Go ahead, Emma. Of course, it is your wedding.”

* * *

In every meaning of the word, everything is _perfect_. Emma is still getting ready, everything she needs in the large tent Snow set up in the meadow on the other side of the docks, but Killian is ready, in his black leather breeches and a red vest over a plain black shirt, something he had to borrow from David because nothing he had was “good enough,” according to Snow.

Pacing up and down the dock in front of the _Roger_ , Killian tries to find something he can fix, something he can put back in place because of _course_ there has to be something, but Snow is just too good. The ribbons, the flags, the decorations: it’s all perfect.

But, then again, so is Emma. Just thinking about her, about spending the rest of his life with her - _which happens to be the rest of eternity_ \- is just as perfect. Eternity on his ship, something that he had already begun dreading, is suddenly more exciting than he had ever though.

“Come on, Killian, just calm down.” Robin comes up behind him and claps his hand on his shoulder, pulling him out of the string of thoughts that somehow always led back to Emma, and when he turns towards his first mate, his brother is standing beside him.

“Aren’t I supposed to be nervous? It is my wedding day, of course?”

“You don’t have to be, brother,” Liam answers, the smile on his face bigger than Killian remembers seeing it in quite a while.

“I can count your attire as the problem for today, right, Liam?” he asks, given his naval uniform doesn’t quite match the rest of the crew’s attire - not to his own fault, though, given that’s what he died in and has been unable to change out of since that day.

“If you absolutely need something to go wrong, then yes, by all means, blame it on me.”

Even after all these years, Killian still tries to wrap his arm around Liam's shoulders and is just as freaked out when his arm goes right through him, and he turns to him, the tips of his ears already reddening.

“Apologies, brother,” he says softly, and Robin leads them off the dock and onto the ship.

“Listen, Killian. I have been dead for over thirty years, and we both still tend to do that. One of these days, we might have to stop apologizing for trying to reach out to each other.”

“Of course, of course.”

“Captain!” August says loudly, with perhaps too much rum in his system already from getting ready on the ship with the rest of the crew and David. “Are you ready to get married?”

Robin and Liam both smile at him and the rest of the crew, all returning from below-deck, with David taking the rear. The corner of Killian’s mouth turns up in a smile towards the crowd, but only for a moment before he falls in step with the king, holding him behind while the rest of them take their places up by the helm.

“I really must say, David, I never thought this motley crew would ever look so well put-together. I know I have already thanked you for letting us use pieces of your wardrobe, but I just have to do it once more. They look great.”

“Well, Captain, when you only get the chance to have one daughter and you miss the opportunity to raise her, you will take every opportunity to be part of her life when you can. So of course I offered my wardrobe in order to make my daughter’s wedding everything she wants it to be.”

Robin comes back down the stairs, meeting a group of men at the end of the dock, turning to meet Killian’s eyes, and he walks to meet them.

“Killian, this is the quartet that Snow sent.”

“Quartet?” he asks, completely confused, and the laugh he hears from David behind him just confuses him more.

“Of course she sent a quartet,” he says, definitely not nearly as confused as Killian is. “I’m assuming this is a surprise to you, Jones?”

“Well, we definitely hadn’t decided on having one.”

“Well, you might as well set them up to play.” David turns from Killian to the four men at the end of the dock. “I’m assuming that she has already told you what to do?”

One of the men holds up a pile of papers, which Killian assumes is their music. “Yes, your highness.”

“Excellent.” David turns from the men to Killian. “Where do you want them?”

Killian’s eyes grow wide, unsure of how to answer, and he turns to Robin. “Where do I want them, Locksley?”

Robin’s eyes widen as well, but instead of freezing, he searches the ship for a good place to put them that is not already taken. “Quarterdeck?” he asks, to either Killian or David, and they both nod in agreement, so Robin leads them off in that direction.

It is not long at all before they have set themselves up and have started warming up, and from then, it only feels like minutes until Alice approaches them, coming down the dock in a beautiful light blue dress, the sign that they are ready to start.

With a sign from Robin, the quartet starts playing their march, and Alice meets Killian’s eyes. Even with all the space between them, she can see the excitement, the brightness reflected in his eyes, and it makes her admire him all the more.

Captain Jones. Walking towards him, she remembers that first day she met him in the alley, after protecting herself from all those men. The first day she met someone who wanted to protect her, someone who really cared about her. And that, above all else, was why she went with him, why she decided to pick up everything she had (though it was already next to nothing) and join a bunch of immortal men on a ship.

He smiles at her, excited and anxious and overwhelmed all at once, but then he sees movement behind her, the opening to the tent being pulled open, first to reveal Snow, her dress the same color as Alice’s, the first time Killian has ever seen her in anything other than white, though understandably so. Next is Triton, larger than any human Killian has ever met, standing at least a foot over Emma, though of course he is currently sporting his “land legs,” wearing all black with a vest the same color as his tail - or so Killian has been told.

And then, she is there, her arm threaded through Triton’s arm, and Killian suddenly understands everything she has said to him about the stark difference between her and the King of the Sea, a comparison that he had yet to see first-hand, since Triton waited until the last minute to join them in Misthaven, given he had obligations under the sea to take care of. Her blonde hair is shining in the rays of the sun, brighter than even the brightest day, her soft curls pulled back and framed by blue flowers. Her pure white dress resembles those that she wore while spending time on the _Roger_ , flowing down to just below her knees. And, of course, Lily has found her way back to Emma, having showed up two days before, flying from seemingly out of nowhere; and today, she is perched on her shoulder, about the size of a small canary.

Everything about her is perfect. He has no reason to be surprised by just how beautiful she is, but that does not stop the breath from leaving his lungs, or stop his heart from falling out of his chest and landing on the deck of the ship.

And _bloody hell_ , he gets to spend the rest of eternity with her next to him.

“Emma,” he breathes, reaching out to take her hands in his, his hook resting at his side, and when she smiles, he can hear his heart beating in his ears, even over the soft sound of the waves against the hull of the ship.

“You all know why we are all gathered here,” David opens, looking out over all those gathered on the ship. “Princess Emma Swan and Captain Killian Jones are here to join themselves in marriage, and we are all the lucky ones that get to witness this glorious occasion. They have asked me to keep it short, so in the best interest of everyone here, I will adhere to that. So, Killian, Emma, do the two of you have anything you would like to say?”

“Of course I do,” Emma says quickly, before Killian can even gather his thoughts. He turns his gaze up to her, the sparkle in her eyes making her even more beautiful than he has ever seen her, a feat which he did not think was possible. “Since the first time I saw you and you rescued me from my tower, you have turned my whole world upside-down, have taken everything I thought I knew and proved to me I was wrong. When I met you, you had a mission, a hope for revenge, but since I’ve met you, I have seen you change. I have seen you change from a man dead-set on revenge to a man who has turned towards where his heart is leading him, and thankfully, that is right towards me. Fate has brought us together, and for that, I will be forever thankful. I love you, Killian.”

Killian takes a deep breath, still trying to get his thoughts together, and when she squeezes his hand with hers, it is almost like magic, helping him put his thoughts in order. “Emma,” he breathes again, smiling at her through the space between them. “I fell in love with you the very first moment I saw you, when you swung open your windows and was just as surprised by my being there as I was by your beauty. Since that moment, I have done everything I possibly could to protect you, even though you no longer really need my help anymore. You’re the princess of two different realms, but all of that means nothing to me; I don’t care who you are or how many kingdoms you’re the heir to, I just care that you’re _you_ , and that even with who I am - how I am - you still choose to be with me. I love you, Emma Swan, and now I am the one person in all of the realms that gets to spend eternity with the most beautiful, perfect being to ever live.”

They both turn to David, who hands him the ring he showed her a few days before, the ring that David himself gave him from Snow’s personal collection, and he slides it on her finger.

With one hand on each of their shoulders, David smiles softly at the pair of them, then looks back out over the crew, Snow, and Alice standing on the ship before them, his smile still spread across his face. “Then it is my pleasure as elected King of the realm of Misthaven to pronounce these two husband and wife, Captain and missus Killian Jones.”

Suddenly, the ship is overtaken by the cheering of the crew as Killian wraps his arms around her - his wife, his Swan, the woman he gets to spend the rest of forever with - and presses his lips against hers, an action that he honestly believes that, like the two of them, will never, _ever_ , get old.


End file.
